I've been in regulated cannabis since before most states had a rulebook. Here's how that shaped what I build today.
Moments That Shaped the Work
Entering Cannabis
Started at The Green Solution on March 10th, 2017 — hired on the spot a couple of days after being fired from the Rio Grande in downtown Denver. Slept on my boss's couch, worked 6am–5pm trimming shifts at Rocky Mountain Tillage's Steele St. indoor grow: a 50,000+ sq. ft. hydroponic operation in what Denver now calls MIP Alley. That floor is where I cut my teeth and where I first met Mina — my future boss.
Turn & Churn, Proving Mettle
The early Colorado market rewarded hustle over tenure — bouncing between companies wasn't frowned upon, so long as you proved your worth at every stop. I moved through The Lab/The Clinic (now Schwazze) in packaging, back to The Green Solution as an Asset Protection guard at the Colfax flagship — the company's first spec-built store — then into warehouse distribution under the newly-united TGS Global, under Lou and Mina. Working hard and staying humble paid off: I was promoted to supervisor, taking over the distro operation from Mina herself as she ascended to Corporate HQ. Before leaving on February 28th, 2020, I helped open the final five stores of the chain ahead of its sale to Columbia Care.
The World Paused. Cannabis Didn't.
I left TGS two weeks before everything changed. During COVID, I worked as a budtender at Colfax Pot Shop — owned by a former NASA engineer from Cocoa Beach who refused to let even the Governor chain his doors. When Denver initially classified dispensaries as non-essential, we scrambled. When the call reversed and the line snaked two city blocks, we learned what essential actually means: staying clean, compliant, and open when everyone else was closed.
The October Incident & Back to the Floor
October 28th, 2021: a volatile roommate meltdown — Aaron's antidepressant-fueled explosion, a police-escorted Suburban ride, and a sprint through Philadelphia International Airport that closed with a TSA wave-through as the plane door shut. I made the flight. That night ended in Denver-bound steak and survival, with Aaron Carter on the stereo. The chaos clarified the mission. Jesse — my old boss from my trimming days — got me in at Kaya, a cannabis operator in the Colorado market, and I landed back on familiar ground. That run lasted through March 2022, when the layoffs came and the floor shifted again. Spark Dispensary came next, then The Stone — two more operators, two more sets of hard-earned lessons. After The Stone, I made a move to Los Angeles to try my hand at STIIIZY. The results were less than stellar. But LA was where I met P — and that changed the calculation. I decided to leave for Atlanta, initially to keep the bills paid, but it ended up costing me considerably more in time, and in other things.
The Unmooring & What Got Built
When P and I broke up — definitively, before anything else — I started sketching what would become ClearLine. Not out of bitterness, but because a decade of moving through this industry from the floor up had given me something most compliance voices don't have: the view from inside the operation. The idea had been forming for years. The breakup cleared the last obstacle to taking it seriously. Minnesota was the next logical move — a new adult-use market, familiar regulatory architecture, and a genuine opening. The November 2025 government shutdown reshuffled the deck entirely. The Hemp Ban signed into law made the urgency undeniable and the mission concrete. ClearLine went from machinations to execution. EIN acquired 11/11. Building now: guardrailed AI agents, compliance architecture, and the Grey Matter Volumes — for every operator who ever felt like the rules were written by people who never worked a closing shift.
Looking in the Margins
Being ostracized, looked over, and disregarded wasn't a setback — it was an education. When you're pushed to the edges, you learn to see what others miss. You notice the patterns in the margins, the signals in the noise, the opportunities in the overlooked.
That perspective became the advantage. While others focused on the center, I studied the penumbra — the gray areas where regulations meet reality, where enforcement discretion determines outcomes, where understanding the full picture makes all the difference.