Page 33 - BusinessWest April 14, 2021

up.”
Early in her career, she worked with grassroots
organizations on social-justice issues, but found it difficult to live in New York on a nonprofit salary, so she pivoted to Wall Street, where she worked in finance with Goldman Sachs for a decade, followed by ventures in real-estate development.
Cannabis is what she calls the third phase of
her career — and one in which she can once again work for social justice, this time in the form of social
“I’m excited to be very transparent about what we are and what we do, and I hope we find values-driven consumers who want to buy from a company that’s trying to do good.”
equity through employment. She was familiar with Roca from time spent in Boston, but didn’t know the organization was active in Western Mass. until, while driving in downtown Holyoke one day, she spotted a man wearing a Roca T-shirt, pulled over, and asked him about it. As it turned out, Roca had recently opened an office in Holyoke, and she stopped by.
“I said, ‘how about entrusting your young people with me to work in the cannabis industry?’” she told BusinessWest. “I was surprised with how enlightened they were. They said, ‘we can’t believe no one has come to us before. We think it’s a great idea for our young people; we don’t have a problem with can- nabis.’ That’s how I found them, by coincidence. No,
kismet — it was meant to be.”
She’s a believer in supporting diversity in the can-
nabis business for the same reason the state estab- lished social-equity guidelines intended to bring opportunities in the industry to populations hard-hit by the U.S. government’s war on drugs that began in the 1970s.
“The war on drugs disproportionately impacted people of color,” Hanna said. “Great Barrington isn’t the most diverse place in the world, but I think we have good people who come from all backgrounds.”
For some of the Roca workers, it’s a long com- mute to that corner of the Berkshires, and some don’t have cars, so Hanna pays the agency to drive them back and forth. Northampton, as a second CGP site in Western Mass., may provide some flex- ibility in that regard. “The commitment at Roca runs deep,” she said. “They feel good about what we’re doing.”
So does Northampton, she said, praising the city for being especially friendly to cannabis businesses and not requiring a special-use permit as an addi- tional layer of bureaucracy, simply a host-commu- nity agreement and a building permit. The site is also located in an opportunity zone, which confers additional tax advantages to businesses that invest economically in low-income neighborhoods.
“We’re going to be creating a lot of jobs here,” she said. “We’ll be staffing up with a lot of entry-level jobs from Roca, but also opportunities for manage- ment jobs; we’ll be building up our skilled extraction and manufacturing and processing teams as well.”
Taking Control
Hanna said she’s a fan of the Roca model of training, one that puts clients in lengthy, simulated work experiences and stresses job-readiness skills,
so they’re ready to enter any work environment for further training in that field. In other words, Roca is teaching young people how to learn and be adapt- able, so their opportunities are unlimited.
Cannabis seems to be an industry of unlimited growth as well — or, at least abundant growth, if the continuing proliferation of cultivation, manufac- turing, retail, and other types of businesses is any indication.
While COVID-19 slowed the pace of fundraising and business development last year, Hanna said, she’s looking forward to opening the next phase of the CGP network. Besides the Northampton expan- sion, current growth initiatives include a wholesale and delivery license in Massachusetts, a pending craft-grow license in Illinois, and Rebelle’s new life- style-focused line of cannabis products and accesso- ries that will launch in 2021.
“We always wanted to be vertically integrated,” Hanna said of the ability to control her own prod- ucts from seed to sale. She pointed to the pandemic- fueled supply shortages in many industries last year as a good reason to take control of her own supply chain.
She added that opening the retail side of the busi- ness before the production side also helps the com- pany learn what types of products customers want before they start making them.
“We live in a more transparent world than ever, and I hope consumers are more educated than ever,” she said. “I’m excited to be very transparent about what we are and what we do, and I hope we find values-driven consumers who want to buy from a company that’s trying to do good.” u
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
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