The ReLeaf Center's Strong Team Supports Its Passionate Leadership
Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Matt Shansky speaks about how The ReLeaf Center hires employees with a passion for cannabis and an eagerness to meet the needs of Arkansas medical cannabis patients.
Editor's note: Presented by Cannabis Business Times in an as-told-to format. Co-founder and COO Matt Shansky shared below information directly with CBT. Edited for length and clarity
Matt Shansky: I was fortunate to be a collegiate athlete [playing football], so [I] experienced a lot of injuries. … I had had some exposure prior to that point in my life, but not to the extent where I would consider myself a cannabis user, per se. But when I got to college and started to experience some injuries and saw how that whole system worked in terms of prescription pain meds and the risk that that poses, I really gravitated towards cannabis and … more personally, found a passion for it and a direct connection with how it could improve my quality of life and allow me to essentially remain functional while I was dealing with various injuries and [provide] all of the other benefits that come along with it as well that I hadn't even considered.
My wife, my brother-in-law, my father-in-law—they brought this opportunity to me. … I think my extended family had an idea that I was interested in cannabis, but we had never talked about it. And they brought the opportunity to me when Arkansas passed the amendment for medical, and [we] essentially just decided to take a stab at it and see what happens.
We’re always just looking for good people. If you feel like you have a passion for the plant and you have a passion for serving people, even if you’re not the most talented, even if you don’t have the most experience—to me, I can work with that. We look for high-character people that check those boxes first. Then, if [they] have the other qualifications, that’s kind of an added bonus. That might not always be the right approach—that’s obviously subjective—but it’s worked for us. We’ve at times, in the past, hired with kind of the opposite approach, looking for someone who has a lot of experience or on paper may be the best candidate or whatever, and it's not worked out very often.
It’s always been a point of emphasis that no one is bigger than the whole and that, ultimately, our success is dependent upon each individual’s contribution … within your role.
This thing does not exist without the team that I have surrounding me because I am not the smartest person in the building. I don’t know everything. And I’m really trying to pride myself on surrounding myself with people that can lift me up and support me in areas that I’m lacking. So, … the overall team that we have here and then their attitudes and their willingness to serve in any capacity—it’s non-negotiable.
It’s more of a destination setting with where we’re located. From day one, it’s all been methodically thought out in terms of that experience aspect, from the drive down the winding road out to the farm we’re on. We redesigned a barn, so it really is a rustic barn setting. And we try to highlight that and play into that through our decor, the lighting, the smell. All those things are thought through to try to encompass an experience that I never found in cannabis prior to this, not to say it’s not out there.
Through my research, if you will, and vetting other facilities and trying to find some inspiration for design, most of my experience was pretty standard brick and mortar, just in and out, coming in, you expect just to get some weed, if you will, but not expecting these types of conversations we’re trying to have and the personalization that we’re trying to focus on with each and every opportunity we get.
We have to put our message out there, we have to make our public statements of who we are and why we do what we do, and what we believe in, so on and so forth, but then, the true test—the [litmus] test of that—really comes down to: Do we reflect that? Do our day-to-day actions, every single chance that we have? So, just because a patient has been in our doors since day one doesn’t mean that we can take them for granted and not provide that same premier-level experience that they had come to expect. If anything, we are held to a higher standard at that point.
We tried to push for an adult-use bill back in November on the ballot initiative, and that failed, obviously. So, … the next opportunity would be 2024 … [for] Arkansas [to] get adult use on the ballot again, and that we are able to formulate an initiative that we can garner more bipartisan support. That’s absolutely on our radar right now for the next steps in our progression, if you will.
But also expansion. We have nothing set of stone in terms of in the works currently, but that’s always a conversation we’re having internally, just looking for opportunities to continue to expand our footprint, whether within the state or otherwise. So, in the next five years, I would like to think that will be something that we [will be] having more formal conversations [about] and seeing come to fruition, as well, is adult use and just overall expansion within the company itself.
Be prepared for everything. Expect the unexpected, as cliché as it is, because this is a rapidly evolving industry. There’s so much uncertainty every single day. I mean, every day, we walk in our building, and we have a plan, and we have an expectation, and we have policies for everything, and SOPs on everything. But inevitably, you still, almost daily, get faced with a challenge, and you’re like, ‘Alright, well, that’s a new one. I guess we’ve got to figure it out.’ So, just be adaptable.
Interview by Patrick Williams and edited for length and clarity.
