Canna Connect Show
The Canna Connect Show introduces you to the people building Minnesota cannabis. Hosted by Canna Connect founder Stephen Eigenmann, each episode brings together growers, operators, entrepreneurs, advocates, professionals, and community members for real conversations about the work, challenges, ideas, and stories shaping Minnesota's emerging cannabis industry.
Canna Connect Show
From the Vault: Brad Obermueller on Energy, Cannabis & Building Smarter in Minnesota
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Some conversations are worth coming back to.
For Season 2, Episode 15 of The Canna Connect Show, we're reaching into the vault for a conversation originally recorded in October 2025 with Brad Obermueller of the Center for Energy and Environment.
A lot has changed in Minnesota cannabis since we recorded it. But listening back, we were struck by how much of this conversation still matters.
Brad and Stephen Eigenmann talk about one of the less glamorous, but incredibly important, pieces of building a cannabis business: energy.
From LED cultivation lighting and utility costs to rebates and facility planning, Brad explains why operators should be thinking about efficiency early and how available resources can help businesses reduce the long-term cost of operating.
The conversation also goes well beyond cultivation.
Brad talks about energy assessments and efficiency opportunities for retailers and other businesses, why he wants CEE to become part of the checklist for Minnesota cannabis entrepreneurs, and what it means to build an energy-intensive new industry while thinking about the demands being placed on the electrical grid.
Then the conversation gets personal.
Brad shares his experience being diagnosed with blood cancer, undergoing treatment, and having a physician at Mayo Clinic suggest he explore cannabis for symptom relief. He describes how cannabis became part of his experience navigating treatment and eventually helped shape his passion for supporting Minnesota's emerging cannabis industry.
Stephen and Brad also get into the changing stigma around cannabis, Minnesota's unique relationship with hemp-derived THC beverages, home growers, small businesses, and a bigger question that feels just as relevant today:
What can we do now to make Minnesota cannabis better five years from now?
This one may be from the vault, but the conversation is far from outdated.
🎙️ The Canna Connect Show | Season 2, Episode 15
Recorded October 2025.
Become Part of the Canna Connect Community Network
Every episode, Community Spotlight, and partner profile helps connect Minnesota's cannabis industry. Visit CannaConnectMN.com to explore interviews, resources, events, and the trusted organizations helping shape the future of cannabis in Minnesota.
Meet Brad Obermueller
SPEAKER_00Welcome back to the Can of Connect Show. I'm your host, Stephen Eigenman. Today I'm here with Lighting Consultant from CEE, the Center for Energy and Environment, Brad Obermüller. Brad, great to see you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great to see you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for being here today. Thanks for having me. On today's show, we're going to talk about one of the biggest opportunities that people may not be aware of when it comes to lighting inside of your micro business from a cultivation perspective and how CEE can help you. We're also going to talk about destigmatizing the plant and how Minnesota has made huge inroads in helping more people take a chance on cannabis in a low dose or in a at your home environment, or hey, even at a restaurant, you know? And then we're going to get into your why and what drives you from a personal standpoint and how big of an impact cannabis has had on you and your family. And then we're also going to take a look ahead and say, hey, where might the Minnesota cannabis industry be in five years? We hope that it's in a much more developed, much more equitable and homogeneous place where we're not having city councils, you know, and zoning and all the unfair green tax that seems to be happening and is happening across the state and the country. But let's get into it. You know, uh we just had a great event yesterday, and uh we appreciate CE for being a huge part of the Canon Connect show. And it makes sense to start it off with episode one with you, Brad. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Happy to be a part of this group.
SPEAKER_00Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01All right.
Why Efficient Lighting Matters for Cannabis Cultivation
SPEAKER_00My biggest takeaway from yesterday was how you, as in the micro business that's looking to build cultivation into your facil into your license, you're incentivized in multiple different ways towards higher efficiency lighting. And the more efficient that your lights are, the better your rebates are. Correct. And the more efficient your lights are, the less you'll pay in the monthly energy costs your hardware, your lighting is going to be more expensive in the beginning. Right. Because you're buying more technology have higher tech, right? It's a it's how would you explain that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
LED vs. High-Pressure Sodium Grow Lights
SPEAKER_01So if you were to go with high pressure sodium, um, first thing, it's not insured in the cannabis industry. Okay, so insurance is kind of the new thing. You have to have it. Fires, right? All of these things that can happen with a hot lamp.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's one thing. The high pressure sodium also has to be replaced every two years. LED is every five to six okay for a grow fixture.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01All right. So if you're replacing that high pressure sodium twice, you know, already there I can justify the cost of the LED fixture. But beyond that, the efficiency, the light spectrums that you can get, the PPE, the the spread of light, the you know, how they can dial it in, the dimming on an LED fixture, you know, with a veg light, you can go with a lower wattage and really drop those, you know, you can make it feel like it's outside, basically, right? You can adapt to what it'd be like if that plant was growing in a California sun, right? Sure. Um, you can't do that with a high pressure sodium, you can only dim about 20% of the light.
SPEAKER_00Another thing that stood out to me yesterday was a high pressure sodium light is basically a a street light that you see out that you see out on Lake Street where we were yesterday. So that's um that's the easiest way to think of what a high pressure sodium light is. It's similar to what you a street lamp. Yes and that and and that's not as efficient as LED. And what within LED, how much of a range is there in in what you can buy for on the market?
Choosing More Efficient Cultivation Lighting
SPEAKER_01So when you're in the market looking for LED, you know, uh one high pressure sodium is the equivalent of a 3.0 PPE 500 watt LED fixture. Okay. So you're cutting half of that that original light source in a 4x4, right, to 500 watts, more efficiency, better yield, all by just switching technology. Now, you could get away with different layouts, and I'm not the cultivator expert. I'm I'm learning like everybody else, right? But the conversations I'm having are only beneficial to go to LED because of its capabilities, because of its future proofing, because of the technology to have controls that you know the cultivator can do from his phone. You know, you can monitor the humidity, the light, the heat, everything. Now, like Kat said yesterday, you know, you can have lower CO2 because that's the whole point of LED. That's what I do for a living is try to reduce the carbon footprint, right? Okay. That is Center for Energy and Environment. And when you're putting out something that needs carbon, right? Yeah, plants need it.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So they gotta supplement that. And when I hear something new like that, oh, okay, well, now I gotta pivot. I have to inform people as I'm talking to them as professionals and business owners, you know, let them know there is no heat coming from LED. I don't know if you knew that, you know. Talk to these cultivators. Most of them know it, but some of these business owners are looking for cultivators. You know, they have the building. Most of these people are like, hey, I have this dream, I have the financial backing. Where do I start? Okay. Well, I have a guy at Excel that can talk to you about all your HVAC and DHU needs and refrigeration. He's been doing this for six years across the United States with Excel. Yeah. Running the rebates, you know, making sure we're pointing you in the right direction, right? That's that's kind of
Energy Demand and Building Cannabis More Efficiently
SPEAKER_01when I me and my colleagues wrote this program. My thing is, is I just want to be part of a checklist. I want to educate and make sure that we're helping people save money. You know, that we we do have these data centers. We're we're putting electric cars out there, right? We're electrifying everything, therefore there's gonna be a demand. Now cannabis is coming in. Now you need three phase. Okay, we're adding power to the grid. Yeah. So we have to save energy in order to prevent power plants from being built because that's when the taxpayers, the business owners, are gonna start paying more to the utilities. Okay, right? So we're adding power, but we're doing it efficiently. We're reducing the carbon footprint, and we're also preventing power plants from being built because we're navigating this correctly. Wow. Okay. And I don't
Why Canna Connect Keeps Sharing Cannabis Education
SPEAKER_01know.
SPEAKER_00One of the things that I struggle with a little bit with Canacon Act is you mentioned the cultivators. You mentioned the business owners that are coming in it without cultivation experience. Yeah. And to me, that's really the spectrum of who's getting into this industry. You have a wide variety of folks that have been doing this, uh, whether it's above ground or below ground or in Minnesota or out of Minnesota. And it's at this point, it's been hard for me to market to the guys and gals that have been doing it for years, that know what they're doing. So why would they come to a seminar when they're already aware of what they need to do? And so by having this platform, this show, where we can allow them to view our perspective at their leisure, and hopefully they like what they're hearing, they like our personality, and maybe they're more inclined to come to a meetup or something like that, where it's less of a seminar, more of a networking meetup, community, and cannabis event where you can consume outside, you can have a beverage inside, there are tables for you to talk to folks, like trying to provide a wider spectrum of how you can show up to a Canna Connect event versus you're gonna come, you're gonna learn. Well, what if you know everything? Sure. And and so that's that's a that's an internal battle that now I'm kind of putting out there where it's like we can't be all things to everybody, but we try to bring a mix of voices to the room, like we did with the facility event recently, where there was such a great wealth of information shared during the event from yourself to Kat, uh, to Don to Jeff to Munir to Gus. And you know, we we have to keep putting out information, we have to keep putting out education because maybe two o'clock on a Wednesday doesn't work for you, but hey, we're live streaming it thanks to CE.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, and and and we're gonna be on LinkedIn with this video and Facebook with this video. It's like you can't get discouraged by oh, only 12 people showed up, or 20 people showed up. It's like, well, there's so much that goes into getting someone to show up in real life, and you know, we appreciate everyone who's supporting Canaconnect because we're gonna keep trying to reach more people because we we really believe in this Minnesota cannabis market from the home grower all the way up to the mesobusiness, all the way out to the tribes, like there's there's gonna be a homogenous uh level of cannabis, there's no opt-out from municipalities. Yes, they can make it challenging to get your zoning, they can put you in the corner where nobody wants to be in Detroit lakes. But what I am excited about is for you to share a little bit more about how CE can help more than just the micro business. On one of the recent conversations I had with Laura, CE can help existing hemp shops, existing retailer, really any business that has lighting, you guys have the ability to help with rebates. And can you talk a little bit more about that?
SPEAKER_01Great question.
SPEAKER_00Also, before we move on, yes, the only high-pressure sodium that I'm concerned about is Cocoa Flow. I love it.
SPEAKER_01Good plug.
Rebates and Energy Savings Beyond Cultivation
SPEAKER_01So to answer your question, yes. So the different levels, and even like you said, these guys that have done this somewhere else or they have mastered cultivation in their basement, you know, the knowledge that they have, yes, to go to a seminar, but what they're hopefully taking away is that, hey, maybe you're a master cultivator, but you didn't know that Excel has rebates that are unlike anywhere else that you've probably grown before, right? That can make this business for you, you're the cultivating master, right? But now you have someone that you can grow for and you can make that happen because of the resources that are out there in Minnesota Territory, right? The big thing is, is you can see the traction that you guys are gaining, whether it's 10 people a week or 100 people, right? With working with the utilities like you are, with professionals that you are, it's only a matter of time till maybe these cultivators that know a lot are like, hey, I have something that worked with me, right? Yeah now, because it's a networking platform that you're creating, everybody can have a voice, whether it's sitting in a chair or coming to a networking event or crossing paths because that's all we're doing right now, right? And then finally they feel comfortable like, let me share what I've learned. You know, that's what you're creating. It's not you have to go through this person, you have to talk to this person.
Free Energy Assessments for Cannabis Businesses
SPEAKER_01So when we talk about what I do and what Laura was mentioning, you know, we're reaching out to customers, you know, maybe they only have a dispensary but they want to cultivate. Well, great, let me look at this warehouse. Same to the studio, right? You come in, oh my gosh, you still have fluorescence, or there's a fluorescent band coming, nobody knows about. So with that happening, or the refrigeration, the refrigeration, the cooling, all of that, the HVAC, you know, we can come in and there's no cost solutions, free assessments, right? Yeah, to show you A, B, and C how to be more efficient. Right. You know, maybe start with this, the low-hanging fruit, and let's swap out the old technology of lighting. And yes, we can give you these rebates. If it's outside our territory, there's other rebate companies. And I will work with Rochester Public Utility and Duluth, you know, and tell them, hey, this is what we're doing in Excel, you know, and because they're calling saying, hey, we heard this, this is what you guys are doing. I had no idea. You know, so we're all working together in utilities. Yeah. And we're trying to find out, hey, if you have cannabis and people are calling us, how can we send them, you know, to you to ask the questions that they're asking us in Excel territory, right? Sure. So there are solutions for any level, any position in a in a business and in the cannabis industry, you know, um offices, you know, the the smart thermostats, every business should have a free smart thermostat that Excel gives you. We come in, I'll do a lighting audit, and now, yeah, your HVAC, your offices, everything like that. Why why do you have something that clicks on and off and runs, you know, heavy usage when you could just have it automated, right? Um, so there's things to lower utilities, to lower your costs. You know, that's the big thing when we put out our our our proposals is we want to show the simple payback of, you know, in four months this project will be paid back. But you what people don't understand is they're spending a lot of money on maintenance. They're spending a lot of money on replacing existing technology that isn't giving them a return. It's just it, yes, the energy costs more, okay, but it's also the business spending more to keep that old technology in place, right? So there's a maintenance savings. There's a lot of things that go into the customer actually winning and getting ahead, right? Sure.
SPEAKER_00Well, and to stay on Minnesota, and I realize that the majority of what you focus on is within Excel territory. Yep. But we know from the hemp derived uh retailers, there's 3,000 stores that are selling hemp derived products like Cocoa Flow at their um at their shop, whether it's a tobacco shop, a hemp shop, uh a CBD store, a dispensary. Like the names have changed over the years. Yeah. Uh at the end of the day, they're they're retail focused. And I want people to know that CE can help you even if you're not a cultivator. Yes.
Energy Rebates for Minnesota Home Growers
SPEAKER_00And then something that you shared with me recently was home growers are going to be able to take advantage of uh rebates at their house. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Up to four fixtures and 70 cents a watt, any home grower, and I believe it can backdate two years. Wow. So reach out to Excel Direct and and ask them about that. So yeah, you can get money, but I I mean it makes sense, right, to reward people to put in better efficiency in their homes. Because yeah, you're ramping up. You're ramping up with a high pressure sodium, even if it's one to two fixtures for your for your home grow. So it's great. They're reaching out, they're trying to really show people not just businesses that they care, but you know, residentially. And you know, they haven't really put that out there, but I know they're accepting it. So yeah, that's it's great for you know the taxpayers as far as residential as well. Sure.
SPEAKER_00To bring that price per pound down. Um,
Building Minnesota Cannabis for the Long Term
SPEAKER_00I shared with you recently uh the conversation I had with uh Ron from Ellion Cannabis, who's looking who he's just got a mesobusiness license and is now looking at property and trying to be vertically integrated and how he views the Minnesota market versus how many in the Minnesota market view it. And one of the things that concerns you about the rollout with the microbusinesses is the 18-month window that businesses have from when they receive their uh pre-approval to when they have to be up and running. That is um a concern because it takes time to get your cannabis business set up. Now, when you hear things about rebates for homegrow and you hear things about rebates for stores and just how we can help bring money back into the business owners and the home growers' pockets, like essentially what I'm trying to get to is the cannabis business or the cannabis industry or cannabis in Minnesota will not disappear after 18 months. It will not disappear after three years. It has been written into statute, cannabis is legal, hopefully forever, as long as we're here and beyond our time in Minnesota. And I think the approach that we have to take as we look ahead to 2026 is how can we make things better as the plane is already sort of taking off? But how can we work? We're all on the plane together. There's a kid, there's pilots, there's flight attendants, stewardess, there's passengers, there's first class, there's business class, there's back of the bus, um uh coach. Um and so we're there there are multiple markets all happening at the same time, but how can we work together as a community to make things better for everyone, make things better for the majority of folks, the independents. Now, each class is gonna fight for for what they want and to kind of elbow out, leave room for them. What I'm really trying to look at is how can we improve year over year and make things better? And that's where uh as an industry we need to lobby, we need to try to get rules changed, we need to build out more space for social equity, build out more rebates, rewards, uh, access in the sense of um how can we make things more affordable, how can we make education, all these things, and and I'm not a policy expert, but I believe that that's the approach we need to take. And when I hear things about, oh, homegrowers are going to be able to get rebates, and what we were talking about is maybe that to some, not every homegrower, maybe that helps them when the next round of licenses come out, to go from being just a home grower to wanting to get into a licensed business. And I'm trying, as and we have the ability because it's still so early, we have to think like five years. For sure. How can this industry grow? How can the Minnesota cannabis industry get better over the next five years? And I think in XL territory at the very least, CE is wanting
Brad's Personal Connection to Cannabis
SPEAKER_00to do that. So talk a little bit more about your why and what drives you to be so pro-cannabis as it relates to all aspects of your life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Not that not that you're a huge stoner or anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, no. I love uh yeah, okay. Good question. So for me, uh my my passion to this, and it's it's it's crazy because yes, I'm not a policy guy either, right? There are and at the Center for Energy, um, you know, I'm probably one of the least intelligent people that work there. I mean, you got graduates from MIT, you got you you have engineers and brains and people trying to come up with solutions that are world-changing, right? You know, so my little pocket in this is the cannabis industry or sustainability for small businesses. But my passion in this market happened
Brad Opens Up About His Cancer Diagnosis
SPEAKER_01five years ago when I was diagnosed with a blood cancer, okay? And two little kids, and you have a little one, you know, yeah, like that's your world. And um, as a father, and I would say the same as a mother, right? You gotta be the rock, you get you gotta you gotta look for ways to like win. And I wasn't gonna give up, I was gonna channel it. And luckily, state of Minnesota has one of the best hospitals in the world, the mail clinic. Yeah. And when I moved to Wisconsin from Illinois as a kid, my dad got into the mail clinic, so somehow my name was already in their system. So when I got diagnosed right away, I was able to get in. I didn't have to do the lobbying and wait. And it happened, just so happened to be, that my doctor writes all the publishing and uh work on my small percentage cancer. Wow. So it's fascinating. That guy is my Michael Jordan, like honest to God, he is so fascinating. But the thing he said, you know, to my wife and I is you shouldn't be here right now. So take that as like it's amazing with what your blood counts are that you're here. You know, the wife doesn't want to hear that. But for me, I'm like, oh wow, there's a purpose, you know, and then I leave that and he says, you
When His Doctor Suggested Cannabis
SPEAKER_01know, you You're going to get a lot of medication. The treatments are going to be difficult. So I suggest you look into cannabis for symptom relief, for taking less medications. And I was like, ah, you know, I got I got kids, I got sports, I got uh a basketball board or, you know, community things.
SPEAKER_00At this time, you the amount of cannabis you were consuming on a monthly basis was at at this time. At bedtime.
SPEAKER_01You know, it was mainly at night to just stop me from wanting to puke or stop my head from But before the before that, you know, it was more recreational. But years back. Years back. Oh yeah, college years. Oh yeah. I tried to do that.
SPEAKER_00But not as a as a dad, as a dad.
SPEAKER_01As a dad, no. You know what you did. Cut it out. Cut it, well, cut it out or maybe have a drink. Okay. You know, a soda. Something like that to just take take everything off. And then they said, you know, you can't drink alcohol anymore. You can't do this. So these seltzers came out.
unknownYeah.
Cannabis Beverages and Changing the Stigma
SPEAKER_01And I was like, wow, you know, I still feel like I can be social out and about with people. Because that that's taken away. It's kind of it's not your identity, but it's part of like the social part of it.
SPEAKER_00And it's amazing how a 12-ounce can just destigmatizes the fuck out of the plant.
SPEAKER_01Isn't that insane? Yeah. It's unbelievable. And they serve them in Wisconsin. It makes no sense. It's not even legal. Big doinks in Wisconsin. Unbelievable. Yeah. You can get 50s, but um, yeah. So then, you know, um, to speed my story up. No, no, please.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's just
Using Cannabis During Treatment
SPEAKER_00your doctor at the Mayo Clinic said, hey, cannabis might be what you need to get because I was telling them how bad the symptoms were.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And I tried to show up to work. I, you know, my bosses and my colleagues are like, man, you know, it's a you know, they would say the nice things and the right things. Yeah. And I just, I don't know, I was motivated to just show up. I wanted my kids to know, like, hey, if you're down, if you're not feeling well, just show up and try to make someone's day. And it's best if people don't know that I'm going through that, right? Because then it's not that I'm trying to not talk about it. Yesterday I just decided to open up about it, and now I'm doing it again. And it's because I'm in a new stage of it,
How Cannabis Changed Brad's Medication Routine
SPEAKER_01right? Okay. And so the cannabis got me off of at one time I was on 11 pills. Okay. The cannabis got me down to six pills that I take every day. So five medications, all five of those medications had side effects, you know? And I'm like, holy cow. And then I talked to the Excel directly, and they were telling me about their programs in uh Colorado and New Mexico. Yeah. And I'm just starting to piece all this together. Like what I'm going through as a as someone that it's helping,
Why Cannabis Became More Than a Passion Project
SPEAKER_01but then hearing the state wants to do, you know, a micro brew for cannabis, right? Yeah. Small cultivation, social equity, people that, you know, are going to jail 20 years ago because they sold two bags of weed. You know, whatever it is. The war on drugs. The war on drugs, right? It's like, wow, okay, I could motivate and help the small guys do a regular lighting project. But this is bigger, this is higher level. This is people's futures, dreams. And I feel like, yes, this this plant, she can help people. And if I can do that from a sustainability standpoint, and then know that this is a quality product that can help adults that don't have a medicinal card, yeah, like there's a lot of people that need help that can't get the help. Okay? They they can't afford the medications. Mine was $3,000 a month, man. I had to ask one time for a benefit, and I hated that. I want to be the guy helping people, not getting the help. You know, it's it's weird, and it's an art to learn how to accept some of that stuff, you know? Yeah, but medication is outrageous. You know, $3,000 for one month of therapy, or you know, you take a just a fraction of that for a little therapy in cannabis to alleviate. Now I'm starting a new trial and I don't have to do a chemo, and it's like everything's falling into line. And I'm my kids got me back. You know, yeah. This industry got me back.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And I've gotten everybody at CE, including the CEO, like the whole shift has changed there. The stigma has dropped from a nonprofit, a non-y think of a nonprofit, I'm sure everybody dabbles, right? But nobody talked about it. Now everybody's high-five and yeah, we represent the small business cannabis in Excel, you know, or we're we're talking to other utilities and trying to bring this program on. It's like this isn't just my passion project. I think it's rubbing off and it's becoming our entire company's passion project.
SPEAKER_00And you've but you've been there for ten years, which is uh that's pretty that's pretty amazing. Not not I certainly haven't worked anywhere for 10 years. Me neither. And and uh and so the the thing that I like about hearing your story, Brad, is there was CEE before Minnesota legalized cannabis. Yes. And you talk about your diagnosis around the pandemic. Right around the pandemic. I'm sure that was easy. Oh wow. And uh
Minnesota's Path Toward Destigmatizing Cannabis
SPEAKER_00and as I think back to the pandemic and uh that year of twenty twenty with Delta Eight being uh pretty pretty rampant, and Delta Eight kept a lot of hemp shops in business around that time. But it wasn't that long after 2020 into 21 and 22 when C B D Celters were you started to see balanced. They were the first to have C B D water, and then 22 it got pretty pretty popular, and obviously every year since it's just blowing up. And so it it it just feels like perfect timing in in so many ways where uh an authority figure at the at the Mayo Clinic suggested plant medicine, uh cannabis raw flour, or you know, and then and then you got access to beverages in the next subsequent year or two, and holy cow, that makes it a lot easier to you know, I came home the other day, my wife was drinking a wink. Sure. A two and a half milligram THC C B D's like Fuck Finally. Yeah. It just took a while, you know, because as soon as it becomes legal, people's mindsets start to shift. When when we legalized and when Minnesota legalized cannabis in August 1st, 2023, or spring of twenty twenty three, all of a sudden C B D went from like oh I'm not sure about that to okay, that's just PG 13. Right. I'm old enough to go to that movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now now or or you could even look at it a little differently, you know, or like cannabis is the R-rated movie or something like that. Like you have to be the adult to go see that movie. But like Minnesota has the ability to be the most uh have the the most momentum towards destigmatizing cannabis, and a lot of it has to do with the slow rollout, whether it was C B D and the the the boom and the crash of C B D. But along the way we learned about C BG and C B N because those were those were tincture products that crested river sold and and curables sold and and like nothing but hemp sold, and you had you had access to these minor cannabinoid tinctures. And then they cut down on Delta VII, but C B D water popped up, and and then all of a sudden like beverages and and and then we pass cannabis legalization, we get home grow. And and then that two years later, targets carrying C B D and T C in in 10 select retail as
Finding Your Place in Minnesota's Cannabis Industry
SPEAKER_00a pilot. And I'm I'm torn at times because there is the narrative, oh, the big MSOs are are gonna take everything or the tribe's got an unfair advantage. And I I understand that narrative and I understand where that comes from, but alcohol is a $250 billion industry. Minnesota is projected to have a cannabis industry of a billion dollars. There is so much room to carve out your niche. And what CannaConnect is doing is attempting to bring people together and provide a space for ideas to be exchanged and for referrals to happen. And I really appreciate CE and yourself and Tony and Jeff and Laura for all showing up because at our events there's great professional conversations happening between vendors, between part like at the end of the day, like we want the individuals and the license holders to show up, but we also know that something that's always been consistent with us is when you show up to a Can of Connect event, you're gonna meet somebody, you're gonna walk away with a connection, and hopefully that puts you in a better position than where you were the day before.
SPEAKER_01So you guys are part of the destigmat
Education, Community and Changing Perceptions
SPEAKER_01you you guys are taking away that stigmatation like that my parents had growing up. Right now my dad has back pain and he takes a gummy and it's like, whoa, I was grounded for that back in the day. You know what I mean? And now you're using it every night to fall asleep for pain. Yeah, like it's education, that's why we are invested in this with you guys because you care about doing this the right way and making people feel comfortable, making people feel like you know, we're all here together. This is a network, and there's ways to make a living off of it, too. You know, not just maybe feel better and be a better person, parent, everything, right? It's you can this is this is a wild west, man. There is money to be made in this too. Like, let's be honest, this is a business, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and let's do it right. And there's many ways to go about it. You know, we there's a dozen license types, there's the hemp size. Exactly. So we're we we want to invite more people into our community and and and create things that we don't even know where they may exist. Like nobody saw this coming, you know, and and and nobody saw a lot of and for a long time Minnesota and the hemp industry got a lot of flack. And I and I think I'm
Hemp, Home Grow and Microbusinesses
SPEAKER_00starting to see a shift that hemp beverages or hemp edibles or low potency is good for the industry. And so is Homegrow. And I'm so glad that we have Homegrow. And I'm I'm excited about the micro licenses. I know we've shifted a little bit away from who you are really looking to serve. But it but these micro businesses, it it's going to take them time, and not every application that got pre-approved is going to actually go to market, and that's I guess that's inevitable. And hey, it was only a five hundred dollar application fee. But um that is that is one of the things that we're weary of and we want to be continue to be conscious of is how can we how can we continue to create more of a fair or a flat playing surface for the micro uh applicant because we know that it's an uphill road for them to to come to market.
SPEAKER_01And I'm here with them. I want to help them make it happen.
SPEAKER_00If so, if folks
How to Connect with Brad and CEE
SPEAKER_00want to get in touch with you, I mean the CE website's great. Yep. Uh where else could they reach out?
SPEAKER_01You can should I just give my number on the CEO? I mean, go on the C yeah, CEE website. You can find us there. Um LinkedIn. LinkedIn you can find us, uh Facebook you can find us in some of the uh cannabis groups. So all the social media uh we're we're there.
SPEAKER_00And um and we'll put we'll in the show notes we'll put your email if people want to reach out to you. Um Brad Obermüller, like having me, man. Thanks for being here. Yeah, good to see you. Awesome. Good to see you.
.png)
