Founder and CEO, 6 Brick’s LLC

Payton Shubrick today (above) and as a 40 Under Forty winner in 2019.

Payton Shubrick joined the region’s 40 Under Forty club in 2019, when she was serving as ‘Innovation and Design Thinking manager’ for MassMutual.

That was one of the years when the honoree profiles consisted of answers to questions designed to provide some real insight into whom these individuals were and, well … what made them tick.

In Shubrick’s case, they certainly did.

Indeed, when asked how she defines success, she said, “living a life of intentionality — one that allows you to smile unwittingly with excitement because of what you do, understand that hard times are a necessary evil to get to good times, and live a life that the ones you love are proud of.”

When asked what three words best describe her, she replied, “innovative, tenacious, visionary.”

And when asked what she’s passionate about, she wrote, “I am passionate about challenging the status quo. It is not easy, nor it is ever comfortable, but one fearless choice at a time, one brave decison at a time, one courageous action at a time … you can change the world. In the end, some of life’s best moments are on the other side of fear.”

These answers explain the motivations for Shubrick’s subsequent career move — a bold entrepreneurial venture, a cannabis dispensary she would call Six Brick’s, a nod to the six people in her immediate family, many of whom are involved in this operation. And the words and phrases she used in those answers almost eerily portend what an extreme challenge this venture would become. Indeed, the cannabis industry has changed profoundly over the past few years as prices have fallen and the herd of players has been subsequently thinned; nearly 40 dispensaries in the Commonwealth have gone out of business over the past few years.

“The days of ‘if you build it, they will come’ are long gone,” Shubrick said simply when asked to describe the current state of the industry, casting new light and reflection on the answers to those questions five years ago and references to being innovative and visionary, and also hard times, brave decisions, courageous actions, and, yes, challenging the status quo.

“The business is definitely competitive, and prices continue to compress, but I’m extremely grateful for the team that I lead and the customer base we’ve been able to grow, and hopefully will continue to grow.”

In many ways, that’s what she was doing when she desired to take a leap, leave the relative comfort of corporate America and Mother Mutual, and not just start a business, but a cannabis dispensary — becoming a “legal drug dealer,” as she put it — at a time when many large multi-state operators, or MSOs, as they’re called, were eyeing Springfield, in a way that Shubrick, who had seen them come to the City Council first-hand while she was interning for that body, found more than a little disturbing.

“Hearing these multi-state operators talk about Springfield more as a profit center rather than as a place with people really became a catalyst for me wanting to get involved in this industry, especially acknowledging that I was a political science major and African studies major, so I understood and knew first-hand the horror that cannabis had done prior to its legalization in communities like Springfield,” she told BusinessWest. “And I really didn’t like the idea of having dispensaries owned and controlled only by wealthy white men who had no real community ties to Springfield or any real desire to see Springfield be able to leverage this industry and do better and provide not just jobs, but career paths for people.”

Inspired by this desire to challenge what could be considered the status quo, and further inspired by entrepreneurial family members — and especially her grandfather, Hercules Shubrick, who got into the recycling business long before that became meanstream and also owned two convenience stores — she launched Six Brick’s in some of the underused space in the Springfield Republican building nearly two years ago.

“Perhaps it was through complaints and the support of my family or a combination of the two, but I found myself in the process of starting up an adult-use dispensary,” she went on, “wanting to set the tone that those in the community could participate in the legal cannabis community and have authentic representation from the community, as opposed to some performative notion of hiring someone who is a person of color, but isn’t actually an owner/operator.”

Since opening, there has been success and recognition, for both Shubrick and her venture. She has been named to another 40 Under Forty list, this one compiled by Marijuana Venture, and was also named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the New England Cannabis Assoc. Six Brick’s, meanwhile, was named Best Adult Use Dispensary in the state by that same agency.

But there have been challenges as well as the industry has retreated from its strong start of a few years ago.

“Ignorance is definitely bliss; I did not know nor fully understand all that I was getting myself into,” she said. “The business is definitely competitive, and prices continue to compress, but I’m extremely grateful for the team that I lead and the customer base we’ve been able to grow, and hopefully will continue to grow.”

In other words, and to recall those answers from her questionnaire five years ago, nothing is easy, nor is life in this industry anything approaching comfortable. But she is determined and, yes, tenacious, in her quest for both continued success in this business and opportunities to help people victimized by old cannabis laws and non-violent convictions — crimes that are no longer crimes under current state law. Indeed, she has helped many get professional legal guidance to expunge their records and clean their CORI records so they can move on in life.

To sum up her accomplishments to date and her outlook on the future, we return to that questionnaire one more time, and Shubrick’s answer to the question ‘what goal do you set for yourself at the start of each day?’

“I remind myself of the words of Maya Angelou,” she replied. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

She has certainly done all that, and this helps explain why she is not only a success in an extremely challenging business, but why she is a finalist for another honor — the Alumni Achievement Award.

—George O’Brien