David Stormzand - Commercial Cannabis Cultivation Trends - Get Up & Grow Podcast EP #8

Welcome to the Get Up & Grow Podcast, Episode #8. In today's episode, we have a special guest, David Stormzand, a highly experienced cannabis consultant with over 15 years in the industry. David has worked in and out of grow facilities across four different states, including California, Colorado, Oregon, and Michigan. He specializes in crop planning, automation, labor management, brand development and helping businesses optimize their grow facilities and achieve their goals.

David shares his background and how he developed his expertise in cultivation and operations management within the cannabis industry. As an industry expert, David stays up-to-date on the latest trends and developments in the cannabis industry. He discusses how he develops and implements tailored cultivation strategies for different farms considering multiple aspects of how they do business and pinpointing their key factors for success. 

David explores the opportunities and challenges facing cannabis operations today and how he helps his clients navigate them. He shares insights from challenging and rewarding consulting projects, highlighting key takeaways from those experiences. Additionally, he dives into the specifics of working with cannabis tissue culture and implementing sustainable growing methods and practices.

We discuss some of the following:

·      His experience in the cannabis industry.
·      His approach as a cannabis consultant.
·      Staying up to date with the latest trends in the cannabis industry.
·      Different cultivation strategies in commercial facilities.
·      Opportunities and challenges in the current cannabis market.
·      Some challenging and rewarding projects and key takeaways.
·      Working with cannabis tissue culture.
·      Sustainable growing methods for commercial farms.
·      Balancing professional insights and relationships with clients.
·      How to foster trust and effective collaboration.

If you're interested in contacting David Stormzand with questions or for consulting services, you can reach out to him directly. Visit his website at https://www.collectiveherb.com/ to learn more.

This Podcast is dedicated to growers like you so we appreciate your feedback so we can provide the best experience possible for the grower community.

Now Get Up & Grow!

Taylor S.

Transcript

Taylor (00:00.738)
Hi everyone. Thank you for joining the get up and grow podcast. I am your host, Taylor Schaberg. Today, we are excited to have an expert in the commercial cannabis industry on the show, who is the founder of collective herb consulting in California. His name is David Stormzand. And over the last decade plus has worn many hats in the industry. First working with cannabis patients in Michigan, and then in Colorado and Oregon as a facilities manager, and then in California as a director of cultivation for one of the largest cannabis facilities in the state.

He is also an expert on the emerging trend of cannabis tissue culture. He is here today to share his story as well as industry trends and what makes his unique set of skills a great asset to anyone thinking of making their facility stand out from the crowded market. We get into sustainability and other topics that can help cannabis businesses thrive in this field. So now please enjoy this conversation with David Stormzand of Collective Herb Consulting.

Taylor (00:01.462)
Hi David, thanks for joining us today on the podcast.

David Stormzand (00:05.007)
Yeah, Taylor, nice to be on.

Taylor (00:08.382)
Well, I really appreciate you being here. I've known you for many years now. You're really involved heavily in the commercial cannabis space and you have a business called the Collective Herb Consulting Company and you were the founder. Can you tell us a bit about your experience working in the cannabis industry and kind of how you developed your expertise in this as a cultivations manager and now is doing a consulting?

David Stormand (00:35.163)
Yeah, for sure. So I've been in the industry for over a decade at this point. Started off, I grew up in Metro Detroit, Michigan, and after 2008, the medical laws went through. I quickly became a patient caregiver serving the Metro Detroit patients in the area. And from 2008 to 2013, I did that organic-based, medicinal-based cultivation there. In 2013, as we all know,

Colorado legalized it. And basically the writing was on the wall. Like in Michigan, the laws aren't what they are today. And if I would have stayed there, I had high probability of getting caught up with law enforcement and kind of, there was no clear black and white legal way to do things there. So I took an opportunity to move to Colorado in 2013 and help a friend launch his brand. And then I moved on.

after that first season to Denver and worked with a group called M. Hardeen who was managing 15 different grows at the time. And basically there I threw myself into the trenches, had some great mentors and really worked my way up to managing grows and director of cultivation positions. And then 2017 I joined Curaleaf, helped them launch their first recreational brand in Oregon.

spent two years finishing the build out and getting everything dialed in. And then the market kind of imploded there and kind of the writing was on the wall that the market would only be so big in Oregon. So I ended up taking the opportunity to join Gold Flora in 2019 and really got to do facility from the ground up, building it and procuring all the equipment, designing it, hiring the team to run it, writing all the SOPs.

and getting it fully production. That was over 20,000 square feet of canopy. So after all that, I was looking for a change and I ended up getting picked up by Conception Nurseries, a tissue culture lab based out of Sacramento and got to leverage my decade plus of in the garden, boots on the ground type of experience to help farms transition to tissue culture clones and harness the power of tissue culture on a commercial scale.

So I spent the last two years doing that and decided to kind of leverage my experiences once again and embark on my own consulting firm.

Taylor (03:14.75)
Yeah, that's such a long history of working with the plant. What was kind of your initial interest in cannabis as a plant? It just sounds like you just went straight into it. What kind of drew you to it to begin with?

David Stormand (03:32.523)
Yeah, so you know, I was a bit of a late bloomer for most of the people that are involved with cannabis. They tried a little bit younger than I did. I was mid-20, you know, I was 20, almost 21 when I first tried cannabis and it was really something that was transformative to my life. It, you know, kind of tapped into some of the meditative states I was experiencing without any drugs and I really understood very quickly the power this plant could have.

Taylor (03:56.814)
Hmm.

David Stormand (04:00.739)
medicinally for different people. So that all kind of came together with the legalization that happened in 2008. And myself and my friends really got involved quickly because it was a new emerging industry and suddenly we were allowed to grow our own plants and have legal plants available to us. So it kind of was right timing for me to get involved on it at a young age.

Seeing it as a potential growth industry as it has been, I really just went head deep into it.

Taylor (04:39.522)
Yeah, and you've made it your life so far. I mean, a decade plus of work. And I mean, the Gold Flora Project, I was speaking with you during that time. That was not a small project. That was, you said 20,000 square feet of canopy, but wasn't it like a campus? Wasn't it more than that?

David Stormand (04:58.127)
Yeah, yeah, I designed over about 40,000 square feet of canopy. Uh, and then we fully implemented the first built out of 20,000 square feet. But yeah, it was a, it's a campus, um, multiple cannabis businesses in there. And Gold Flora is a vertically integrated company. So there was, uh, manufacturing, extraction, distribution, uh, in, uh, adjoining buildings to that cultivation space.

Taylor (05:27.218)
Yeah, wow. So you really like climb the ladder. I mean, and now it's like, where do we, where do you take your experience? Right. So starting your own business makes, makes a lot of sense. Um, because yeah, I feel.

David Stormand (05:42.351)
Yeah, and I will say, you know, especially in my last position as director of customer success with Conception, you know, it's a startup, so I wore many hats, but one of the biggest things that was takeaway was just helping these farms achieve results and being an advisory role to them already and helping them overcome their challenges, whether it was in tissue culture or other cultivation issues they were facing. So I get a lot of joy, you know, being able to help.

as many people as possible in this industry.

Taylor (06:15.062)
Yeah, because their most recent role was way more customer focused and sort of business development. So you really have had a taste of every aspect of working this industry, it seems like.

David Stormand (06:26.643)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Taylor (06:30.262)
Well, that's awesome. Um, I want to get into kind of your operations as a consultant. Uh, how do you approach working with cannabis operations as a consultant, just in general and like, what is your process for understanding a client's needs and developing like a solution for them?

David Stormand (06:48.867)
Yeah, so I think first is really diving into the details of the potential client. And if they are looking to start something from scratch or if they're inheriting or purchasing a building that already has something in place, or they're already operational and looking to optimize their operations, it starts with looking at different strategies for each. But obviously when you're starting from the ground up, it gives you a lot of

flexibility and being able to design it to spec with the latest technology and latest automation that you can deploy. When you are fully operational and you have kind of like what it is, then facility audit evaluation is a great place to start. I go through the entire facility with, you know, fine-tooth comb looking at every aspect.

of the environment, equipment functionality, workflow processes, and different ways to automate systems to maximize the efficiency and output of the facility.

Taylor (08:02.158)
Okay, so yeah, I mean, and like if someone's growing different types of strains and does that kind of stuff depend and change the game and what you'd recommend for them?

David Stormand (08:17.807)
little bit. You know, most facilities are on a harvest cycle. So, you know, if you have, depending on what, how long you want to go each cycle, will determine how many cycles you can have per year. In the past, when, you know, you want to maximize the number of cycles per facility. So, each room has a potential of six rounds that could be harvested.

Six seems to be a pretty tight schedule. You have to be really on the money and it doesn't give you leeway for some of the longer finishing strains like sativas. But depending on the brand and what you're growing for, whether it's wholesale marketability or your individual brand, individual brands will have more diversity of cultivars they can grow. So they're gonna want some indicas, some hybrids and...

Taylor (08:57.314)
Mm-hmm.

David Stormand (09:13.543)
hopefully some sativas in their lineup. And most sativas these days are hybrid sativas. So they've been bred to finish between eight and a half and nine and a half weeks, unlike some of the historical land race type sativas that could go 12, 13 weeks in some cases, which have some pretty unique cannabinoid and terpene profiles, but on a commercial scale, we're not there yet.

in the industry where we can charge that much more if a cultivark has to go 13 weeks versus 8 weeks. So at the end of the day, look at the overall capacity of the facility, what the client is looking to do with the end product, and essentially maximizing that sportfoot canopy for maximum output, then maximum quality, and fine sativas that are that long that can ..

gilded a little bit like eight and a half to nine and a half weeks on a fume or two.

Taylor (10:17.794)
So is there like some sort of secret sauce and optimizing these grows from the get-go or is it kind of, you're always gonna have to go through that initial, those initial pain points to get to maybe where you need to be to be at that true commercial level.

David Stormand (10:34.639)
Um, you know, I see a lot of facilities that are kind of operating, um, somewhat efficiently and as the prices have dropped, the margins have dropped. And so the importance of really looking at your operations and their efficiencies becomes more and more important because, you know, we're now longer in the days of $4,000 pounds or in a lot of cases, uh, $2,000.

So you could be very inefficient in the past and still turn a profit. It becomes harder and harder as time goes on and it becomes more commodified. So the importance of really looking at the fundamentals is crucial to be able to be profitable in this market, especially on the West Coast.

Taylor (11:27.826)
Right. And are you seeing more players coming into the game this today? Uh, medium sized, large sized, is it still a steady flow or is it kind of hit a wall or you mainly just focused on facilities that are already set up and they want to, you know, get more efficient or optimize their operations.

David Stormand (11:47.891)
My personal favorites are the startups. I love building out grows and utilizing the newest technology and automation to be able to create something that's brand new. Especially on the West Coast, it's really interesting. A few years ago when I was talking with farms, it seemed like everyone was expanding. Every farm I visited, they were showing me their expansion plans. I realized one day, how can everyone be expanding?

Taylor (12:12.109)
Hmm.

David Stormand (12:16.283)
Sure enough, six to eight months later, we started hitting a wall, especially in California, on what the market was asking for. So I've seen a little bit more of a consolidation in California and on the West Coast in general. So less new projects are going up right now, and it's more about taking your facility and surviving these times right now so you can thrive in the future. So it's really looking at automation, cutting costs, and figuring out the most efficient way

to grow cannabis on this type of market conditions.

Taylor (12:51.346)
Right. Well, you've been in the industry over a decade now, and I'm sure you've seen lots of changes in how these facilities operate. An example, probably going from HBS to LEDs, more automation happening. I mean, what kind of trends are you seeing in terms of efficacies? Have we hit a point where everything's, you kind of can recommend the same thing to everybody, or is it just constantly?

changing.

David Stormand (13:23.087)
Yeah, I've seen a lot of change in technology in the last decade. It's really interesting seeing originally the metal halide lights, the magnetic ballasts, these ballasts were like giant weights that were hard to even lift. Moving to the double-ended HPS lights, which at the time were phenomenal. And in the right circumstances, they can still, many girls utilize those. And if they're already in place, then...

Taylor (13:37.643)
Right.

David Stormand (13:53.043)
keep rocking with it. But if I was starting a new grow today, I definitely would go LED and I would go double stack. Really maximize the square footage of your facility. That's one of the biggest trends I'm seeing. Now all the new grows that I see going up, I'm very surprised that they go to double ended HPS route. LED has come a long way in the last five to six years have really kind of traded into the flower rooms.

I've been utilizing veg LED lights for some time now, and for a long time it was a little bit, I was a little bit skeptical if they can match the output and the quality that the double-ended HVS lights were doing. But the last five or six years, the technology has come a long way and everything's been dialed in, and between the electrical savings and then the heat footprint that it emits and the double-ended, or the double-stack approach, you can really...

you can do a lot with a lot, a little score footage with the double stacked approach rolling benches. So that's a huge trend that I'm seeing. Obviously automation continues to become more of a important play, you know, very rare. Do you see someone, you know, hand watering their plants on the commercial scale? And there's a reason for that, you know, automated dosing machines for fertigation where they're, you know,

Basically automating as much as you can in the grow. There's still a few areas that are very human labor centric, defoliating, training, plant touching work has not been able to be automated. And I think for a long time it won't be, but I know people are working on things to be able to defoliate and to automate those areas as well.

Taylor (15:48.722)
And how do you keep up to date with some of the latest technology and trends? I know you're out there, you attend a lot of networking events. What more do you do to kind of make sure that, you know, your recommendations are the latest and the best?

David Stormand (16:07.803)
Yeah, so just keeping up with the publications, following all the different companies that are in the space, seeking out innovative companies like Active Grow on how you innovate in the industry, going to trade shows like MJ BizCon, and then just chatting with people in the industry, asking what's working for them, what's not, what things are they hearing about.

Taylor (16:39.046)
Yeah, there's just so much happening. So many people kind of have their style and then, you know, because it's an industry that kind of, there's some people that don't share a lot of information. So how do you, I mean, you're also at your previous role, you were on the ground in a lot of facilities. I mean, how many facilities do you think you visited over those couple years?

David Stormand (17:02.139)
Over the last two years, I've been through over 150 different farms. And, um, you know, everyone, I think in the past, there was a lot more of the master grower mentality of like my secret recipe and my secret way of growing things, but, you know, as it's become a commercial legal industry, you know, there's been a lot of standards, like. Yeah. At a certain point, you're just reinventing the wheel and there's already a lot of options to go with, uh, with.

Taylor (17:06.947)
Yeah, wow.

David Stormand (17:31.799)
established companies that have proven track record on their products. So there's a lot of secret sauce, but more or less it's different styles that you can deploy and really looking at what's the most efficient way to grow at a commercial scale. Because on an attempt in your basement, you can grow an amazing product on hand watering with compost teas and doing...

you know, a really intricate growing method. But if you try to scale that, it becomes more and more of a challenge to do some of the techniques that you do in your basement or in a garage versus at scale. It's completely different. And I definitely learned that as I went from like more of a patient caregiver in Michigan to learning all the ins and outs of commercial cultivation, you know, there's some strategies that I would love to see.

at a commercial level and then when I tried them, it was a complete fail and then caused a lot more headaches than benefits and then also potentially a lot more labor to do those type of techniques then. So it's about maximizing every touch point of the plant.

Taylor (18:37.666)
Hmm.

So, Ia, you've seen it all. Well, what do you see as some of the biggest opportunities and challenges facing cannabis operations today? You mentioned a little bit of them. Maybe there's a little bit of consolidation happening, not as much new people are entering. What are some other things that you're seeing?

David Stormand (19:08.687)
Yeah, so right now it really feels like, especially on the West Coast, the tides going out, we're kind of seeing who's wearing shorts, who's not. So the inefficient players out there that have gotten away with cultivating at a higher cost per pound and the margins, if they eat into their profits too much and they're not profitable in the way they grow, there's only so much time that these companies can last.

David Stormand (19:38.755)
you know, brand development, looking at how your company can differentiate itself from the competition by focusing in on what your core values are as a company and what you offer to your customer base. There's a million different of the same type of companies out there, but I think there's room for everyone to get a piece of the pie if they focus in on their local market and what they do that's unique and what their value add is to the market.

Taylor (20:09.486)
How do you help these clients navigate the challenges and capitalize on those opportunities that you said?

David Stormand (20:17.115)
Yes, I mean, really looking at each client individually, actively listening to like what their growth strategy is and has been, what their end user or market purchaser is. You know, if they're going for wholesale versus their private brand that goes to a series of third party dispensaries, or they're going completely vertical to their own dispensaries, all those factors play a detrimental role in.

they continue on. So if you're doing wholesale, you have to really understand what the wholesale market is asking for and try to really hit those phenotypical markers as close as possible. Unfortunately, the market's still driven by high THC, that purple candy gas on the West Coast, and certain brand names of strains that are still

Taylor (21:07.97)
Hmm.

David Stormand (21:15.219)
crushing it on the wholesale market. And then for a private label, private brand, you have a lot more flexibility in the cultivars you can grow. So really looking at, I like to think of the cannabis menu as similar to the microbrewery kind of menu. A brewery can focus on kind of a broad range of like the light lagers and pilsners to all the way down to the...

triple IPAs and be a generalist. Kind of have the spectrum of what beer offerings there are. I see that with cannabis, you can really kind of have your spectrum for your personal brand from the Indicas to Sativas and some of the flavors that people have grown to love. Or you can be a brewery that kind of specializes in something, so some breweries special, like they're really known for their IPAs or they're really known for like,

creating lighter beers. So from a cannabis branding perspective, you could focus in on you know, OGs for example, like if you have six different types of OGs and you're really known for your OGs, that's one play you can do. You know, how to get known for one particular strain, you know, working on breeding or working with breeders to have something that is a little bit unique of a terpene profile. In California, it's not the deli style. So

in markets where the dispensaries deploy more of a deli style, where you can open up the packaging, smell the product, look at the product. I think you can have a lot more diversity in what products you offer. It's really a challenge in California right now because how do you get the consumer to smell the product and see it before they buy it? So it's a lot based on just seeing it through your packaging. So yeah, there's many different approaches to it.

depending on the customer and what they're trying to achieve, will definitely cater to that individual client basis.

Taylor (23:21.09)
I love the comparison to beer drinking and breweries from the guy from Michigan.

David Stormand (23:28.777)
Yeah.

Taylor (23:30.942)
Yeah, I also grew up in Wisconsin, so I appreciate beer as well.

David Stormand (23:31.355)
I always thought that, yeah, yeah. It's one of those things when I first started growing, I was also home growing as well. I kinda had like a fork in the road. I was like, I really like both of these crafts. Which direction do I really wanna go in? And I chose cannabis.

Taylor (23:52.938)
Wow, imagine in an alternate universe what you could have been.

David Stormand (23:53.383)
But I've always been a big fan. Yeah, my beard would be a little bit longer if I was in the in the Brewer House.

Taylor (24:01.874)
That's funny. Yeah, true. So yeah, you mentioned earlier on about dealing with tissue culture, which is super interesting, I think, in the cannabis space. Could you tell us a little bit about working with tissue culture specifically? And yeah, like just in general.

David Stormand (24:22.843)
Yeah, it's a fascinating subject in cannabis. It became a really eye-opening experience for me, obviously working with Conception Nurseries, but also just seeing firsthand. There's a viroid called hopliteinviroid, and basically I first came across it in Oregon in 2017, working with CureLeaf. We started our facility, and I noticed that one of our cultivars,

would have kind of a weird deading effect. So about 10% of the cultivar would kind of just look like behind everything else, kind of dulled out. I just attributed it to potentially genetic drift, which I've seen that in the past where something's been just cut for 20 years and it's been kind of an old and tired type cut. So I just cut 10, 15% over for that cultivar and culled.

all the ones that were exhibiting those symptoms. But then I noticed over the next three to six months that I was finding that all the other cultivars were now starting to show the same symptoms as that first one. And that's when I started realizing, hey, this was something else going on here. And come to find out that it was, that first strain was, that first cultivar was infected by HLVD and that had quickly spread to the entire population.

of cultivars in the facility. And so I had seen it there and basically with tissue culture, it's a way for you to rejuvenate that fresh tissue. Like basically it's similar to like popping seeds again, that fresh rejuvenated state of a seedling without any viruses, viroids, diseases present.

Taylor (26:05.282)
Hmm.

David Stormand (26:19.843)
So it performs just like you just pop the seed. So it's a way for you to basically clean up genetics, rejuvenate them. And also there is a huge opportunity for genetic banking and storage. You can take genetics and put them in cold storage and kind of save them for the appropriate time for them again. So if you're doing, you know, your crop planning, you could.

have stuff in cold storage, bring them out for certain seasons or certain times of the year when you want to run that cultivar. It also allows for just consistent stock. If you're doing a traditional nursery at your facility, you're probably hopefully clearing your moms out every three months at least and bringing new moms in.

So there are some ways to utilize tissue culture on a smaller scale to basically just do enough tissue culture to produce a few moms every few months. So your cuts are coming from a mom that came from tissue culture. So and this is not a horticultural term, but in the cannabis industry, we say Gen Zero would be straight from the...

the lab straight from tissue culture. Gen 1 would be basically a mother plant that was taken from the tissue culture, grown up into a mother plant, and then cuts were taken. So it's traditional cutting, cloning method, and that would be considered Gen 1. And then each generation that you took cuts off from those clones would be Gen 2, 3, and so forth. But in reality, the Gen 1 is probably that sweet spot for most cultivar...

most cultivators who don't want to get nursery stock all the time of Gen Zeros, it allows them to basically receive the benefits of tissue culture. The Gen Ones from what I've seen have the same vigor and the same rejuvenation as a Gen Zero, but they're more in a similar style of the traditional cutting that most growers are used to. So yeah, tissue culture is amazing.

technology and there's many companies in the space and a few different strategies of how to go about using it. I think it's something that every facility should at least learn about and know how to at least get in contact with some of these nurseries or explore doing some small scale to see for themselves.

Taylor (29:06.982)
Okay, that's interesting. What generation of cannabis plant would you say you'd want to start looking at something like that? I mean, how far can you know generations go before you get some strange effects happening?

David Stormand (29:21.147)
I mean, you probably could go five or six, but ideally in an imperfect world, like Gen Zeros or Gen Ones would be my ideal candidates for plants.

Each generation you get away from the TC, it becomes more just like a normal plant. I mean it's the same genetics and all that, but you should be able to really capture the uniformity and the rejuvenation with that Gen 0 or Gen 3.

Taylor (29:43.21)
Hmm.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm sure we could do a whole podcast just about tissue culture, um, and get into some of the details there. Uh, but I wanted to mention or ask you about sustainability and can you discuss how, you know, any sustainable growing methods that you have implemented into some of your facilities and you know, how these, uh, how these have, uh, have affected your clients and their bottom line.

David Stormand (30:02.311)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure. At the end of the day, we're still growing indoors with, we're trying to mimic the perfect outdoor environment indoors and really crop steer and drive that performance of the plants. So, at that point, there's only so much simple stuff you can do with that, but a huge area that I've seen that has been pretty cool to see is HVAC reclaim. So basically,

reclaiming the dehumidifier. Like so everything that you water the plants with, the plants perspire and it goes into the air and you're battling that room to make sure it's within, you know, a few percentage points of humidity that's optimal for the growing in that phase. So you're pulling out that humidity that the plants are putting out. And a lot of times those go to the drain, but it's basically, I mean, it's very clean water.

As long as your lines are clean, you can run like a UV in line on your piping. Um, you can reclaim, you know, I've seen it where a facility was able to utilize. 80% reclaim. So they only had it add an additional 20% water each round after they started doing this. So you reclaim the dehumidifier water. You can water that right into the plants that keep circulating.

So that's one huge way you can save on water, because as we know, it's a pretty highly water intensive crop. Another way is utilizing LED technology and double stacking or triple stacking your rooms. You can use less material in your building costs and less space, overall square footage space that you have to heat and cool.

Taylor (31:52.33)
Hmm.

David Stormand (32:20.991)
and you get some energy savings with LEDs. Although I know the newest products and new trends with LEDs, we're exploring higher outputs from electrical load, but you're also able to get higher outputs from a end product perspective as well. But you do reduce your heat print so you can save some energy costs on the HVAC.

Taylor (32:40.712)
Right.

Yeah, the lighting technology is interesting how it's changed because they used to just recommend 900 to 1000 PPFD average for HPS technology. And now they're seeing that 1500 plus PPFD is proving to be, you know, creating higher yields and more budding sites. So we're, I think with LEDs, it's unfortunate that we can't save energy like we thought we could, but we're also learning how to create larger plants at the same time. So it's.

We're still trying to find that balance, right?

David Stormand (33:17.955)
Yeah, and with LEDs, I mean, you can speak to this more than I can, but you can really pinpoint the spectrum to exactly what you want. And it's more of a usable light than, you know, this very much utilized by the plant.

Taylor (33:33.258)
Right, and then compared to HPS, it's also so much easier to work under. It's a higher CRI, it's more comfortable. So you gotta think about the people that have to work in there all day and how they're seeing anything wrong with the plant before it becomes a bigger issue, as well as seeing other issues.

David Stormand (33:38.259)
Mhmm.

Yeah, and you really see that full spectrum when you're in these flower rooms with LEDs, it's more of like a natural lighting environment where working under the double-ended HPS, you're working under kind of a strained environment. So everything's yellow. So it's not true to color either. So you have to wear special glasses that change the spectrum. So blue glasses that you can kind of see more of a normal lighting that you would be used to in normal life where...

And most LEDs, it's more of a full spectrum that you can, it looks the same color as in your normal everyday life as well. So that makes it easier to identify problems much quicker too.

Taylor (34:29.804)
Right.

Yeah. So lighting is a huge, I mean, and how much do you think lighting is in terms of power that a facility like a 20,000 square foot facility, how much power does lighting, what percentage of that power is lighting you think?

David Stormand (34:50.343)
You know, lighting and HVAC are going to be your two biggest power sucks. That's, I'm not sure what a percentage breakdown would be between the two of them, but between those two they're highly correlated. And so, you know, if you don't save a little bit of electricity on the LEDs anymore, you're at least saving a little bit on the HVAC side. They emit a lot less heat than those double-endeds.

Taylor (34:57.207)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Taylor (35:18.646)
I know that for other plants, hydroponics is one way to save water. Is this a way to grow potentially in commercial facilities or is it kind of, it's all, you know, a certain way without hydroponics quite yet?

David Stormand (35:34.383)
Yeah, so I mean, hydroponics can, you can really dial everything in and be really precise and really save your water, recycle your water. I think there's a reason we don't see more commercial cultivators doing this is because the risk, it's high risk, high reward. If everything's dialed and you have everything going, the end product, you can get amazing yields, amazing results for quality.

But the issue arises as you scale up, you also have a bigger risk because if, let's say one of your equipment fails and your plants don't get water, there's a very narrow window of, you know, those plants need to be continuously flooded with water. And if anything goes wrong, the plants can die very quickly. So there's not much of a buffer like with soil or with cocoa.

or even rockwool, you have a little bit more of a leeway if something does fail. If one of your, for whatever reason, your solenoids don't go off, you have more of a buffer to figure that out and fix it. The other major issue is with these viruses and pathogens that are present in commercial cultivation, HLVD and, you know, bithium and fulcirium.

Taylor (36:45.262)
Okay, cool.

David Stormand (36:57.827)
you're sharing water between all the plants. So I mean, if it is introduced to one plant, you know, it's getting spread to everything else. So the proliferation rate is much quicker and higher. So I have seen a few commercial cultivators doing aeroponics and hydroponics, and I have unfortunately seen also the devastation that those type of things going wrong could impact your facility. One facility had to completely...

Taylor (37:06.743)
and...

David Stormand (37:26.835)
kill everything in the facility and start from scratch, essentially. Cleaning everything.

Taylor (37:34.446)
That's why people need to talk to you so they can hear about these experiences before they might just go ahead and make a move like that. That's a huge thing.

David Stormand (37:46.983)
Yeah.

Taylor (37:48.674)
Um, but yeah, I mean, that's just, sorry, that was on the left field, but since we're talking about sustainability and you're in California and there's water issues there, I'm just trying to think what are some ways we can save water in those parts, parts of the country.

David Stormand (38:01.975)
Yeah, yeah, I'd say, you know, that reclaim is the biggest. I mean, that's an amazing savings right there.

Taylor (38:11.754)
I think I heard your son back there.

David Stormand (38:14.359)
Yep, I've got a 14-month-old. There he's with the nanny playing. They must have just come back inside.

Taylor (38:21.759)
Nice. Yeah.

Yeah, it's all good. So, yeah, having a family and running your own business. How is that? How's that going?

David Stormand (38:34.679)
It's great, you know, it affords me a lot of flexibility to, you know, outside of meetings and dealing with clients, you know, spending some time with the family and with my son. It's amazing at this age, at 14 months, you know, he's really like learning so much about his surroundings. And I can't help but make the comparison of, you know, growing cannabis for so long, you're every moment in the garden, you're focused on, you know, nurturing this plant from seed to...

to the cure and getting out to the market. And each one of those steps require a lot of attention and nurturing and I can't help but make the comparison of raising kids and keeping a close eye on them and watching their development and thinking of what ways you can, what you can do to facilitate growth and a positive, good environment for that.

Taylor (39:26.51)
That's awesome. Beautiful comparison.

Taylor (39:31.998)
So I wanna have a couple more questions for you, then I'll let you go and get back to your family. But as a consultant, how do you balance the need to provide valuable insights and advice with the need to build strong working relationships with your clients?

David Stormand (39:48.467)
That's a good question. I think it's really important to build that trust and open communication with your clients so they can reveal and share what pain points they have. Unfortunately in the cannabis industry there's a lot of snake salesmen and more often than not I talk to clients that have been burned by consultants or other so-called industry experts or master growers.

So it's kind of overcoming a skepticism of being burned in the past and balancing that out with professionalism, open communication, and dialogue. Really listening to the client and what their needs are, where their pain points are, what they're looking to achieve, and creating clear objectives, including like KPIs and what direction

work together, these are the objectives that we're focusing on, these are the metrics, how we measure them as being successful, and we'll be checking in along the way and how does that relationship work and look like.

Taylor (41:02.402)
So yeah, that sounds great. What strategies have you found to be the most effective in building these strong relationships and being productive as well?

David Stormand (41:14.311)
You know, just being available, you know, with my clients, you know, I'm available if they have an issue, you know, it could be whatever time of the day, being able to, you know, obviously within reason, if it's not a major issue, then midnight on a Sunday night might be a little much, be a little bit much, but, you know, being able to be there for them and know that they can trust me to be there for them and to work through whatever issues that they're facing.

and just continuing to be responsive and allowing for that relationship to build. And that, you know, obviously building rapport with your customers is important, and clients, the client consultant relationship, you know, you want to be focused on what the objectives are and how to alleviate those pain points for them.

Taylor (42:09.774)
I mean, because you've been there for over a decade, from Michigan to Colorado to Oregon to California. And yeah, you've always moved up, so people have put their faith in you. And that's, you know, that's the proof is in the pudding with your performance, so.

David Stormand (42:26.363)
Yeah, and I wish that there wasn't as many snake salesmen and people that are creating a mistrustful environment because at the end of the day, this plant does a lot of help for a lot of people. And I like to think that every year in the cannabis industry is at least two to three in other industries. Like it takes a lot of dedication and passion to continue on in this industry. There's a lot of ups and downs.

Taylor (42:39.319)
Hmm

David Stormand (42:56.571)
volatility, but it really does attract a wide array of different backgrounds and people that are drawn to this industry and this plant for various reasons. But at the end of the day, I think this plant impacts the world on a positive side. So I like to think that we're all doing something good for the world by being a part of this.

Taylor (42:58.637)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Taylor (43:21.682)
Yeah, I think so too. I think it's a powerful solution for a lot of people. And, you know, I believe that can be very helpful, you know, for people with mental health issues, as well as, you know, other issues. So it's, it's sort of a miracle drug in a way. And I think pharmaceutical industry is trying to maybe have more control over it. And there's people on different sides. And it's just

interesting the dynamics that are changing and, you know, how things are moving forward. And it's cool that you're just on the ground part of it. And I, you know, I would trust your expertise over anybody. So, so thank you for that.

David Stormand (44:02.643)
Appreciate that.

Taylor (44:04.65)
Um, finally, what tips or advice would you give to someone who's thinking of starting their own cannabis operation, whether it be a small one or commercial facility and like, what are some key considerations they should keep in mind as they embark on this journey?

David Stormand (44:20.347)
Yeah, so basically depending on the individual what they're trying to achieve, whether it's a home grower or a mega facility that they wanna produce lots of cannabis from, I would say education is first, like really dive deep into education. Obviously, depending on what role they wanna play, if they wanna cultivate, they're gonna wanna learn as much about cultivation as possible.

Obviously the different methods of growing and have at least a basic understanding of how to grow cannabis Obviously starting from a smaller scale Makes it easier to scale up. But if you have to go big then obviously work with trusted people to help you avoid the pitfalls of a lot of issues that you could face when Starting facility so working with someone like myself a trusted consultant That can you know really help?

avoid those pitfalls that you may face and get off to the races as quickly as possible with it, as little bumps in the road as possible.

Taylor (45:29.762)
So just go for it. Like you're gonna experience setbacks, but just go for it, right?

David Stormand (45:35.375)
Yeah.

Taylor (45:38.294)
All right, David. Well, it was so awesome having you on. You're a good friend of mine. I've known you for many years. It's exciting that you've just come this far and you're doing so well. And I want to keep the conversation going with you and as we maybe discuss more of cannabis industry trends, dive more into tissue culture and discuss some lighting things as well. But yeah.

David Stormand (46:01.807)
Yeah, always a pleasure to chat.

Taylor (46:05.822)
Yeah, well, I hope everyone out there that's thinking of starting their own facility or they have a facility and they want to expand or they want to learn more how to optimize their systems. They should reach out to David. Uh, he is the Swiss army knife of, uh, commercial cannabis operations and, uh, good friends. So again, thank you and, uh, have fun with your family the rest of the day, and I'll talk to you soon.

David Stormand (46:26.995)
Thanks Taylor and the website is collectiveurb.com

Taylor (46:30.35)
CollectiveVerb.com. All right, I'll leave all the links to everything after the episode so people can find you and they'll be good to get connected with you there. Thank you again.

David Stormand (46:42.663)
Yeah, thank you. Have a good one.

Taylor (46:44.654)
All right, bye.