3 minute read
STONER OWNER
Andrew Thompson
Monkland
After seeing the corporate side of Cannabis during his time in Colorado, Andrew Thompson said he’d been burned “by the mentality that this is just a commodity.”
So, upon returning to Oregon, Thompson tackled the creation of his own company with a focus on grower relationships. He’s managed to keep the company small by sailing solo and has built partnerships with “like-minded, smallbatch” producers such as Roots Life Farms, Storm Cannabis, Real McCoy, Big Beard Farms and Bula Farms.
TELL ME ABOUT THE NAME MONKLAND. I was born and raised in rural Oregon and Monkland, Ontario is what I named the company after. It’s an ode to my late father and the unincorporated community. We’re taking the name Monkland and creating something new in honor of where we came from. Monkland is in an “opt-out” area, but we’re located as close as we could get, which is The Dalles, Oregon.
WHO IS BEHIND MONKLAND? I’m the majority owner, operator and extractor. I’ve handled every aspect of it. Pushing it through engineering and demolition, and most of the construction myself. It’s really an extension of me personally. I make every single batch and I work seven days a week. I just love making extracts and want to share that. I’ve found ways (like ancillary businesses) to really broaden the reach.
HOW DID YOU GET YOUR START IN THE FIELD OF EXTRACTION? I moved to Colorado in the late 2000s. It was when medical over there was popping off and the relax in regulations gave me the opportunity to start basement growing. I decided I was going to go to the local community college and study horticulture because this was the industry I wanted to pursue. Around 2011, hydrocarbon extractions started making a scene down in Denver, and I was introduced to it in late 2012. It just sparked something in me and I dedicated every single ounce of time to hydrocarbon extraction. From (kind of) a garage hustle, I was able to make enough noise and catch enough attention to end up building Northern Colorado’s first medical/recreational hydrocarbon facility in Fort Collins in late 2014.
WHAT BROUGHT YOU BACK TO OREGON AFTER THE SUCCESS OF YOUR COLORADO CAREER? I learned a valuable lesson about corporate Cannabis and being used as a means to an end. Around that same time, my father got diagnosed with terminal brain cancer here in Oregon – I came back home and had to start from scratch, and I really thought that I wasn’t going to be able to get back into the industry. I was just about to take a position in Portland when the Monkland thing just organically happened. I found a couple of people that wanted to invest in me and here we are!
A Stoner Owner is a Cannabis business owner who has a relationship with the plant. We want to buy and smoke Cannabis from companies that care about their products, employees and the plant. You wouldn’t buy food from a restaurant where the cooks don’t eat in the kitchen, so why buy corporate weed grown by a company only concerned with profits? Stoner Owner approval means a company cares, and we love weed grown with care. Let’s retake our culture and reshape a stigma by honoring those who grow, process and sell the best Cannabis possible.
