The Story
Every career is a series of “what had happened was…” moments.
Chapter 01
The Counterculture Foundation
Before cannabis was an industry, trust-building was already the trade. The Chicago Seed Collective, Faces Disco magazine, co-founding Rothman/McGhee—every chapter taught the same lesson: credibility isn't claimed, it's demonstrated.
Production work at The Chicago Seed Collective built an instinct for authentic voice. Faces Disco refined editorial judgment. The Rothman/McGhee marcomm firm earned a Golden Trumpet Award from the Publicity Club of Chicago for the Morgan Communications identity program. At Rothman/McGhee, paper merchant rep Jim Forney taught a lesson most designers never learn: buy the stock direct from the merchant and ship it to the printer yourself. Printers would look at the job jacket and say, “Earl, how do you expect us to make any money?” That’s what happens when you understand the entire supply chain, not just the creative side.
Chapter 02
25 Years of Technical Sales
CGS-Oris, color management, G7 Color Expert certification, prepress—the kind of B2B technical sales where you don't get a second meeting if you can't speak the buyer's language on day one.
Two and a half decades of selling technology to print production professionals. These were buyers who could spot a bluff in the first five minutes. Here’s what most people never understood about CGS-ORIS: it was a paper company. They sold so much of their own-label proofing stock that they could give away the color-managed RIPs and train customers on ICC profiles—just to lock in the paper business. HP proved this model at planetary scale—today they’ll give you the printer outright because the real business is ink and paper. HP Instant Ink is a marketed subscription service anyone on the globe can sign up for, 24 hours a day. Jim Forney taught the economics at the one-to-one level. CGS-ORIS ran it at the enterprise level. HP turned it into a global consumer platform. Same model, three magnifications—and understanding where the money actually flows is the consultative selling instinct that connects all of it. Cold-calling into technical environments, building territory from zero, managing complex accounts where the relationship is everything. That muscle memory doesn’t atrophy—it translates.
Chapter 03
Into Regulated Cannabis
Seven-plus years navigating the most complex regulated markets in the country. Premium brands. Dispensary relationships. Compliance as a competitive advantage.
Deep work with premium brands like GoldDrop, Blue River, and 710 Labs. Advocacy for Sun+Earth Certified regenerative cannabis practices. Built a network across cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Developed expertise in terpene literacy—understanding that terpene profiles, not THC percentages, are the true differentiators. SC Labs Phytofacts as the gold standard for COA interpretation. This knowledge base is rare in the industry.
Chapter 04
What Happens Next
Now bringing territory-building skills to hemp and emerging markets—where the opportunity is in account development, not a Rolodex.
The hemp market doesn't need someone's regulated cannabis contact list. It needs someone who can research a territory, cold-call into new accounts, build relationships from scratch, and manage a growing book of business with CRM discipline. That's the skillset—research, cold calling, account building and management—refined over 25+ years and sharpened by 7 years in the most demanding regulatory environment in the country.