On a blustery morning last November, Mark Zatyrka was getting ready to meet his future staff. The CEO of INSA, a vertically integrated medical cannabis producer in western Massachusetts, figured that the job fair he'd announced weeks earlier would bring in maybe 100 interested prospects. He’d planned on two hours.
Instead, Zatyrka and Director of Operations Ian Kelly met about 400 people at the old mill building that houses their cultivation center, processing lab and dispensary. INSA’s neighbors, Zing! Table Tennis, had kindly offered use of its space for the job fair—another example in a long line of community partnerships that helped usher Zatyrka’s company from the drawing board to opening day.
INSA was seeking to fill roughly 50 jobs at the outset last fall, but demand for entry into the burgeoning east coast cannabis industry far outpaced the executives’ expectations. Candidates arrived in droves, with backgrounds as varied as botany, accounting, horticulture and operations. “You name it, they came out and were very interested in finding out how they can start their career here in the medical cannabis industry,” Kelly says.
INSA opened its Easthampton, Mass., facility on Feb. 9, 2018. Later in spring, it’s planning on opening its second dispensary just down the road in Springfield. There, it will seek to hire talent from the local community and promote the development of its corner of Massachusetts.
“Our endeavor started about five-plus years ago with the state,” Zatyrka tells Cannabis Dispensary, “The city of Easthampton has been outstanding to work with—from the city council members, past and present; the previous mayor; the current mayor; the police chief; fire chief; everybody has been very accommodating to us, very responsive. We have a great open dialogue with the city, so that we both understand each other’s concerns and needs. They’ve been an outstanding partner with us—and that goes for the community as well.”
In 2015, the city of Easthampton sought bids for its Pleasant Street Mill project—a broad redevelopment initiative that took the old bones of industry and rejuvenated them for newer, fresher commercial activities. The network of buildings that attracted the INSA team also brought in the folks at Zing!, along with several breweries, an event space and a comic book shop, all overlooking Millside Park and the Lower Mill Pond. It’s inviting, is the point.
The INSA team participates in local advocacy groups, supporting youth drug addiction awareness programs and public safety partnerships. Zatyrka says the community has been nearly 100-percent supportive of the cannabis industry’s presence in town.
Zooming out a bit, INSA finds itself at an interesting crossroads in Massachusetts’ cannabis marketplace. It has opened only the second (and, soon, third) medical cannabis dispensary in the western and more rural part of the state. Even with Massachusetts’ adult-use retail market looming this summer, the INSA team is tailoring its products to patients who’ve been clamoring for choice since the medical issue was approved via a 2012 ballot initiative.
“We have a large patient base here in western Massachusetts that’s had a very limited selection of dispensaries to choose from, which obviously creates a limited selection of products,” Kelly says. “I think from a patient standpoint, seeing a little bit more variety and more options and accessibility is always something that encourages them—to feel like they’re getting a broader range of safe access to cannabis. That’s something that we strive for—to bring new products to the market.”
From the start this month, INSA has offered eight cultivars. With Ancestral Skunk and Chemdawg on shelves, for instance, INSA has a dynamic breeding program at work. The goal is to provide up to 12 cultivars for patients, and Zatyrka says he’s keen on educating those who visit his dispensary. He wants to move patients past the surface-level indica-sativa dichotomy and into the richer world of complex terpene and cannabinoid profiles.
“Our genetics are more diverse that what you see commonly associated with current market sales,” he says. “We’ve gone back to genetics from the ‘80s and ‘90s, which we cross-breed so that we can focus on expanding the terpene profile. We’re heavily focused on educating how those play a very medicinal role to patients and understanding how indica and sativa [are] a great base for deciding how those affect you, but really it lies within the terpenes and understanding how those marry with cannabinoid profile testing.
“We really picked a very vast selection of cultivars that will do that for us. That then allows us to create R&D within our processing center—producing special binds, … concentrates, wax, and shatters and live resins to crystallines and cartridges and then what’s going to be hopefully a very evolving edible line that will evolve with the seasons and what is in the current market in western Massachusetts. What’s nice about being out here is there’s so much agriculture and so much that we can pick from that allow us to pick seasonally fresh items.”
That’s the key, from INSA’s perspective: Focus on the local. The new hires (and future hires) have that western-Mass. sensibility, which combines neatly with the ongoing changes in state cannabis policy. For Kelly’s part, he hails from the Colorado market, where he picked up valuable experience.
“The large majority of our leadership and executive team are from Massachusetts—and specifically western Massachusetts,” Zatryka says. “We are from here, we live here, and we want what’s best for our communities. We brought in folks like Ian, who has strong experience from the Colorado market and other markets. We made sure to bring in key employees and consultants who have actual experience to ensure that we do everything right the first time around.”
On the cusp of its adult-use market – for which INSA has plans to apply, down the line – cannabis-industry professionals in Massachusetts will certainly look to Colorado and other states that have come before. Zatyrka points out that state leaders interacted closely with Colorado officials in, for instance, the state’s Department of Revenue, in order to follow best practices and include lessons learned from recent cannabis-regulation history.
As a vertically integrated company, INSA’s oversees its own testing on Pleasant Street as well. “We look at terpenes and cannabinoid testing profiles,” Zatyrka says. “And creating a more in-depth conversation with patients, understanding how that affects them and really finding the right kind of profile that matches their needs.
“It’s not only to benefit us but the community and town will greatly benefit from us being here. In terms of security, we brought in our head of security from a high-max prison who has overseen our whole security plan. We have well over 200 cameras throughout our location just to make sure everything is safe for our patients, as well as our staff and community members.”
And it’s a journey, no doubt.
“We started off with the idea of bringing in local talent and using the resources that are so abundant here in western Massachusetts,” Kelly says. “We’ve been able to add a nice presence here to further the rejuvenation of this area that we’re located in.”
Photos by Alyssa Robb
