Q&A: Growing cannabis through spreadsheets
Photo | Courtesy of Revolutionary Clinics
Mark Vlachos, director of cultivation at Revolutionary Clinics
On Aug. 5, Revolutionary Clinics in Fitchburg announced Mark Vlachos as its new director of cultivation. With nearly a decade of experience in the industry, Vlachos spoke to WBJ about what his job actually entails, and how he went from studying classics to managing cannabis cultivation facilities for various companies around Massachusetts.
How did you find your way to Revolutionary Clinics?
So I've been in the cannabis cultivation for about nine years now. I got my start at 17, working at a grow shop, where I did technical equipment sales, troubleshooting and systems installation, basically for folks doing indoor growing.
From there in 2012, Massachusetts started its medical cannabis program. In 2013 the state gave the first provisional licenses for medical facilities. One of those companies was Milford Medicinals, which I joined up with in 2014. Milford Medicinals would later become Sira Naturals. I was at that company for about five years.
We liked to think of it as an underdog story. There was not a lot of investment capital flowing into cannabis at the time. At Sira Naturals, we really built that brand, up until its acquisition in May of 2019.
After leaving Sira after its acquisition, I was poached by one of Sira’s competitors. That competitor was Holistic Industries, which owns Liberty Cannabis up in Somerville. I was with Holistic Industries for about six months. About mid-February is when I departed and actually, just for a while, jumped right into consulting.
While I was in the midst of my consulting work, I was approached by a recruiter who brought me in. I was told that there was an opportunity, that Revolutionary was very quickly expanding. Recreational sales are in full swing Massachusetts, especially, prior to COVID. It was really just the potential for great opportunity.
So, what exactly does a director of cultivation do day-to-day?
So funnily enough, a lot of spreadsheets. I never would have thought a few years back, just freshly graduating college, getting into the industry as a head grower, I would sit in front of spreadsheets all day and the greatest tool in my arsenal would be Microsoft Excel.
A big component is you’re always going to see the plant. You’re going to start every morning doing what I call just a standard crop walk. It’s going through and walking every single cultivation room, every single flower room in every single bedroom, really checking in there are no imminent fires. That’s always first and foremost.
After that, when you have the right system in place, the director of cultivation should not be sitting there and pruning your plants every day, or going through and watering your plants.
If you have a farm manager insisting on being the one who rides the tractor all the time and doesn't want to go and do the accounting spreadsheets to make sure things aren't in the red when it comes to the bottom line, those farms usually don't work out so well, long-term. I take that same approach. That's where spreadsheets come in and data analytics.
You have a classics degree. Could you speak to your background and how you translate that into a career in this unrelated, nascent industry?
I like to use as an example Eliot Coleman, the godfather of the modern organic movement in the United States. He says the preface of his book “The New Organic Grower,” somebody can go out and get a four-year degree in agronomy or horticulture or plant and soil science, or they can go out for a year for a single year and work for a successful farmer. And they'll come out at the other end of that experience, whether it's four years getting a degree or one year with a successful farmer knowing and having learned about the same. For me, it's very much been the case that practical knowledge is king.
So during my time working at a hydroponics retailer, I was growing myself, at varying scales and levels. That’s really the direct experience with equipment, definitely, I was able to leverage on the facility design side.
I was able to leverage indoor production experience, having done that first-hand myself. I don’t really speak too much on it because in the early days of medical legalization in particular, home cultivation was really the only way patients were getting product. A lot of folks will kind of look down on that prior experience. They want someone with a degree in horticulture or a degree in greenhouse management. But there’s very little that compares to actually getting out there. That’s really what I leveraged initially.
This interview was conducted and edited for length and clarity by WBJ Staff Writer Monica Busch.
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