Name: Griselda Duran
Location: Worcester, Mass.
Title: Flower Supervisor, 4Front Ventures
One word to describe your cultivation style: Instinct
Indoor, outdoor, greenhouse or a combination: Indoor
Can you share a bit of your background and how you and your company got to the present day?
I started out with a background in visual art. I went to Framingham State University in Massachusetts with the goal of becoming an artist full-time. I got out and fell flat on my face! I had to find a different line of work to sustain myself and my passion. My brother, Moises Duran, also known as Mo, was already working in the cannabis industry in Georgetown, and he said, “Why don't you just go to Worcester and apply?” So, I headed out to Worcester with the goal of becoming a cultivator. I had a job interview literally three days after I moved in, and I landed a position as a flower associate. I’ve been with 4Front ever since!
What tool or software in your cultivation space can you not live without?
I couldn’t live without a good pair of pruners, especially around harvest time! In terms of software, I would say Excel. Our data sheets really help us organize and keep up with our plants and processes. We log every step of the process, so we can analyze what led to any given result. Whether it be a nutrient deficiency or a pH that’s slightly off, we’re able to log those observations and change course accordingly.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your business in the last six months?
Bagel breakfasts for the team! It's nice to show your team that you appreciate them because without them, we couldn’t do any of this. They're the ones that are out there putting in the gritty work. We really, really appreciate them, and it brings up the vibe; it elevates their energy to come back and keep doing what they're doing. It's hard work. There’s a lot of physical activity and manual labor, but it's rewarding because we’re putting our time and energy into something tangible. It’s awesome to see the growth and progression of the plants we’re touching every day and [to] see our final products on shelves–not just in flower form but in vapes, concentrates, edibles and more. Right now, my favorites are the Mini Budz!
What cultivation technique are you most interested in right now, and what are you actively studying (the most)?
Really understanding the plants on a molecular level and learning to communicate with them because they talk to us through their leaves. A lot of nutrient deficiencies look similar, but if you take the time to just look and recognize that something is funky, then you can run tests to figure out what’s going on. It’s a process of elimination. “Let’s do a pH test, then let's do an electrical conductivity (EC) test. Those look normal, so let’s cross this and that out.” It’s almost like figuring out a little puzzle. I really enjoy learning to speak to the plants so we can give them what they need.
Right now, we are in the most challenging time to date for plant-touching businesses, as price compression, competition from the illicit market, high taxes, and more continue to be a challenge. How can cultivation teams respond to these retail/wholesale market pressures?
I think the most important advice is to keep a positive outlook on everything that's going on and keep moving forward. You must keep doing what you're doing because in the long run, the industry will stabilize and continue to grow. You have to trust your work. You have to trust your team and trust the process. You're going to have ups and downs, but it’s important to stay level-headed for your team and keep working your ass off as a leader. Energy is contagious. Your team will feed off that positive energy and follow suit.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?
The best failures are the ones that become stepping stones to success. Fail, but learn from your mistakes. That makes failure worth it. If we’re not learning, we’re not evolving, and failure is the first step in that process. That being said, one failure that comes to mind is the time I forgot to flush the manifold lines after cleaning them. We had to reverse engineer the process to ensure the plants were untouched. Thankfully the plants were fine, but it would’ve been a very sad day in the flower room if we had not acted so quickly. All mistakes come into play. Every failure is going to help you rise and evolve in the long run.
What advice would you give to a smart, driven grower about to enter the legal, regulated industry? What advice should they ignore?
Do what you love. Invest in yourself. Invest in your team. Whenever you need guidance, seek it out. Make sure you’ve dotted all your I’s and crossed your T’s so that everything is on point. And when you're growing, grow with positive energy because that's what you're going to manifest. If you're exerting negative energy, your plants will feed off that negativity. Ignore any doubters. Ignore any haters, [and ignore] any negative energy. Anybody that tells you that you can't do something, use that as fuel for motivation and go out and prove them wrong.
How do you deal with burnout?
Rest, meditation, yoga, art, dancing, cooking, hanging out with my partner and family. All the things that make my soul happy are what recharges and grounds me.
How do you motivate your employees/team?
We’ve got a bunch of different little things that we do. Fridays are our day for activities. When it was NBA All-Star weekend, we had a basketball dunk competition where we collected all our gloves from pre-harvest and had a contest to dunk them into the trash can at the end of the day. Last week we did trivia, and if you got a question wrong, we did five jumping jacks together as a team. We take our work very seriously, but we make sure to have fun while we do it. The camaraderie is something I've never experienced in other workplaces. I'm very thankful to be here and to be working with this team every day. It's a blessing.
What keeps you awake at night?
Definitely learning from my mistakes. I think about what might have happened and how I can improve. And then, of course, my general anxiety. Sometimes I worry about forgetting to do a feed or turn off the water in a particular room… But then I remember why we have our fail-safe systems in place. I take a deep breath and tell myself, ‘Relax, you're good!’.
What helps you sleep at night?
Meditation, Native American flute music, ocean wave sounds. Some nights I'm so tired, I just knock out immediately. I'll fall asleep on the couch watching my favorite show: Fresh Off the Boat.
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