Join the Texas Hemp Coalition Board Members, Jake Garry of Fresh Grown Texas & Drops of Life and Taylor Kirk of 4KPharm as they discuss a recap of the 88th Texas Legislative Session. We discuss all bills, issues and ongoing policy efforts at the state and federal levels. Moderated by Executive Director, Ilissa Nolan.
For five generations, Kimberley's family has been a steward of the land. South Texas heritage soil is part of our past and is our future. Our venture into hemp farming compliments our established ranching and deer operations and we continue the family tradition of hard work, hands on management, and organic stewardship. From the time a hemp seed goes in the ground, until it is used in a consumable product, it is a healer. CBD Texas Farms hemp is grown outdoors and indoors depending on the season...
This episode goes into the policy issues that are in Texas versus other states such as Delta 8, hemp feed, etc. Our Executive Board member Spencer Owens of CBD Kratom and new HIA Board Member shares his expertise as he works in other states across the nation to protect the interests of the hemp industry.
Jody McGinness comes to the Hemp Industries Association with more than 20 years of experience in leading associations and membership organizations in the nonprofit sector. Most recently, he served as the head of fundraising for the Marijuana Policy Project . He served while that organization campaigned successfully to pass adult-use legalization legislation in Illinois and Vermont. During his tenure, the organization also engineered the passage of medical cannabis legalization in Utah. Jody’s pa...
This is an episode that you definitely do not want to miss! Join us as we hear from our two Executive Board Members, Shayda Torabi and Jeromy Sherman, as they give us a recap of our recent trip to Washington D.C. They discuss the importance of reaching out to your respective representatives both at the Federal and State level on what changes that you want to see for the industry, important issues we advocated on behalf of and how the 2023 Farm Bill will affect our industry. Also, don't forget to...
Jonathan Miller, a nationally-celebrated government relations professional, leads Frost Brown Todd’s federal advocacy practice and has emerged as one of the country’s leading advocates and attorneys for the global hemp industry. Jonathan serves as Member-in-Charge of Frost Brown Todd’s Washington, D.C. office, whose combination of public policy and regulatory experience, backed by the support of a full-service law firm with offices in key markets, carves out a unique value proposition: He can dr...
Leah Lakstins is a native Kentuckian with a passion for facilitating amazing consumer experiences that educate and entertain. Before her cannabis career, she assisted commercial roofing contractors grow their businesses. She is a Trainual Certified Consultant and has a certificate in Retail Fundamentals from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Additionally, she is a Trichome Institute Professional Interpener, UNLV certified cannabis professional, and secretary of the ASTM D37.06 subcommitt...
Dr. Russell W. Jessup is the Associate Professor of Perennial Grass & Industrial Hemp Breeding of the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on conventional, cytogenetic, and genomic strategies towards development of improved perennial grasses as biorefinery platforms for biofuels, turfgrasses, forage, ornamentals, phytoremediators and renewable bio-based products. This includes developing molecular tools to assist marker-assisted breeding prog...
Tune in to learn from two of Texas’ leading legal professionals, Lisa Pittman of Pittman Legal and Cameron Field of Michael Best, what the recent Texas Supreme Court update regarding the smokable hemp ban means for Texas hemp businesses as well as what is the latest status of Delta 8 THC in Texas. Lisa Pittman has been a pioneering figure in the Texas cannabis industry since 2015. Ms. Pittman is appointed to the Texas Department of Agriculture Industrial Hemp Advisory Council by the Texas Agricu...
Grow House Media is an Austin-based production company that is clearing the smoke around the most misunderstood plant on the planet. We live at the intersection of education and entertainment, advocacy and amusement, telling the truth about cannabis and getting a little wild along the way. They are the producers of Big Texas Hemp which is a docuseries about Texas Hemp Farmers! Founded by husband-and-wife team Liz Grow and Patrick Pope, Grow House Media is Texas’ only cannabis-focused production ...
Aaron is a native of West Texas, a part of the world where a person's word is gold. His first passion and love has always been ranching, with Cannabis coming in as a close second. Serving as VP of Sales for Dutch Pro liquid fertilizers gave him the opportunity to developed his extensive network within the hemp industry. A hemp pioneer in Texas, he started working with extractions and custom formulations in 2015, and then formally organized his company, Tejas Hemp, in early 2017. As word of his p...
Amos Lozano is Native San Antonio entrepreneur and founder of @EmjayzeHemp, @FamousJuiceCompany and Texas preroll processing. Amos' businesses focus on fostering the growth of the cannabis community while promoting the industrial aspects of cannabis with hemp made packaging, apparel, and even hemp buildings for his juice bars. He is the host of a podcast featuring local entrepreneurs and cannabis education called, Eat Plants Move Often podcast and he is the Cannabis Leader for social justice pla...
Keil Gauger is the founder of Caprock Family Farms in Lubbock, Texas. His longtime farming operation spans over 5,000 acres of cotton, peanuts, peppers and wheat grown in Gaines and Dickens counties. The addition of Caprock Family Farms has allowed him to add hemp to his already extensive list of crops. Having farmed on the South Plains for 27 years, Keil is a seasoned agripreneur and understands the importance of making diverse crop choices like hemp . Caprock Family Farms is a true family affa...
Dan Hunter serves as Assistant Commissioner for Water and Rural Affairs. He is the top advisor on the critical issues of water and the important role it plays in agriculture and the Texas economy. He also oversees programs involving rural affairs, including rural health care and marketing. Hunter has an extensive background in agriculture, research, water, and policy development. Most recently he served as Executive Director of the Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research (TIAER) at Ta...
Taylor Kirk is a horticulture service specialist for Fluence Bioengineering, global leader LED horticultural lighting, where he consults cannabis growing partners and collaborates with researchers and other cannabis industry leaders. He has more than twenty years of experience in agriculture, with a diverse background in agronomics and a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Texas A&M University. Following the limited legalization of medical cannabis in Texas, Taylor shifted his professional fo...
Colt Power a Dallas, TX native graduated from the Episcopal School of Dallas before earning his BA in Business from the University of Notre Dame. While at Notre Dame, Colt was a goalie on the D1 Men's Lacrosse team all four years, earning Big East Conference Academic All-Star in both 2010 and 2011. Projected to graduate December, 2022, Colt is currently an MBA candidate at the SMU Cox School of Business. Sports and fitness have always been a very important part of his life, but prior to discover...
Cameron Field is an attorney with significant experience in the cannabis industry as is the co-leader of the cannabis industry group at the law firm of Michael Best LLP. As a recognized expert in hemp regulations and hemp-based products, Cameron has twice been a featured speaker at Texas Hemp Convention and has organized hemp focused panels for the South By Southwest conference in Austin, where he calls home. Cameron’s cannabis clients range from some of the nation’s largest industrial hemp proc...
Dr. Bill Doubleday is a semi-retired board certified dermatologist who has practiced in Houston over 33 years. He is the 5th generation in his Australian ancestry to own and manage farming and grazing properties. He owns and manages a cattle, horse, and farming property near Schulenburg, Texas and was one of the very first in Texas to get a permit and grow a test plot of fiber hemp varieties. He also serves on the Texas Industrial Hemp Council. Dr. Doubleday received his undergraduate degree fro...
Lisa Pittman focuses on litigation and regulatory compliance. Throughout Ms. Pittman’s 20-year career, she has litigated and tried disputes relating to labor & employment, breach of contract, commercial banking, fraud, fiduciary duty, construction defect and injury, deceptive trade practices, premises liability, professional liability, and products liability. She also possesses extensive expertise in complex commercial insurance coverage matters, having both defended insurance companies and ...
Spencer Owens is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University in Political Science and born and raised in Lawson, Missouri, Spencer has worked in governmental affairs in both the public and private sector for several years. From three years working in local government policy, to advising Missouri State Legislators for two years, to now supporting the advocacy and policy plans of CBD Kratom, Spencer has had his finger on the pulse of politics for quite some time. Spencer is very interested i...
Eddie Velez was born and raised in Dallas, TX - more specifically, Oak Cliff. He’s a University of North Texas Alumni with a degree in Emergency Management. Eddie spent over 15 years in the emergency management industry, with 11 years in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). During his time with FEMA, he managed and coordinated large scale disaster response operations at multiple levels of government, and deployed to numerous federal declared disasters nationwide. When Texas began movi...
Dr. Karla Johanning, a native of Costa Rica, is the CEO and Founder of KJ Scientific & KJ Scientific Independent Testing Labs, an ISO /IEC 17025 accredited testing laboratory and Contract Research Organization (CRO) located in Georgetown, TX. Karla has dedicated her professional life to study different aspects of environmental biology and ecotoxicology in relation to human and environmental health. Dr. Johanning founded KJ Scientific in 2014 using an innovative technology that she developed ...
Jake Garry is Co-Founder and CEO of Drops of Life CBD and Fresh Grown Texas. Jake was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas where he studied business management at the Anderson Business Academy at Texas Tech University. Jake spent a few yeas going to school in New Mexico where he met his business partners who became some of the first pioneers in the medical marijuana industry 13 years ago. Jake has over a decade of experience and mentorship with medical marijuana in our sister state of New Mexico fr...
Mike Biegalski is the Vice President of Sales & Operations for Flex Payment Solutions, a payment processing firm in St. Louis, MO., and runs that position from Chicago where he moved after helping setup home-office operations in St. Louis from 2016-2020. Upon graduating from Butler University in 2015 after four years of Mathematics studies and being a member of the NCAA FCS football team, Mike was accepted into a rigorous Corporate Finance Master’s program at Washington University in St. Lou...
Cintia Morales is the Co-Founder and Director of Education for Higher Ed. Hemp Tours, an Austin based hemp advising company dedicated to bridging the gap in cannabis knowledge between consumer and retailer through unique experiences. Also, she is the ESL Program Director for ACES Language School, located in Austin, TX. She has taught English, as well as a variety of subjects, to both young and adult students from all over the world. She has been a world traveler instructor with a passion for edu...
Jason Almand was born and raised in the Dallas area. He is a 7th generation Texan whose family has been farming in North Texas since 1876. Jason spent over 15 years in the environmental industry and managed a company that responded to chemical spills and environmental remediation services. Jason has been involved with cannabis for over 20 years, working to educate to remove the stigma of the cannabis plant. He believes that the key to wellness is through plant medicine. Jason is focused on colla...
Shayda Torabi, Co-Founder of RESTART CBD Shayda Torabi has been voted best Texas Hemp Educator, Advocate, and Influencer, and she’s one of the women leading the cannabis reformation conversation building one of Texas’ premier CBD brands. She's currently the CEO and Co-Founder of RESTART CBD , a female and family run education first CBD wellness brand. Shayda is the host of a podcast for cannabis marketers called To Be Blunt , where she interviews top cannabis brands on their most successful mark...
Henry Valles is a licensed NAR GREEN Certified REALTOR®, Top Producer, and Diamond Club Member with Realty Austin. He is also a Founding Board Member of the US Hemp Building Association and former President, VP and Co-Founder of the Texas Hemp Industries Association. In 2017, he spearheaded Austin’s first hempcrete home in Community First Village, a community for the chronically homeless. Henry has delivered presentations on developing community through hemp building at multiple conferences, suc...
Dan Burton has agriculture roots that go back 6 generations. He serves as the Director of Operations for Sun House Ventures LLC. Dan has 12 years of cannabis cultivation experience, including large scale greenhouse cultivation, large scale indoor and acres of farmland. Dan has spent the last 4 1/2 years in large scale hemp farming with over 2,000 acres in cultivation. In that time Dan has worked on pioneering hemp harvest processes and technologies. He also designed and built a hemp harvest proc...
Kyle currently sits on multiple board of directors for agricultural focused companies and presently is the Co-CEO of Agrarian Supply and the CEO of F1 Genetics. At the start of his career he spent 6 years in organic farming and fresh food processing as a Sales Manager at Earthbound Farm. Kyle also spent 7 years at Wilbur-Ellis Company, LLC holding the positions of National Specialty Crop Portfolio Manager, Retail Branch Manager & Pest Control Advisor. He has over 15 years of Agricultural Sal...
