Name: Jesus Burrola
Location: Salinas, Calif.
Title: CEO, POSIBL
One word to describe your cultivation style: Efficient
Indoor, outdoor, greenhouse or a combination: Mixed light greenhouse
Can you share a bit of your background and how you and your company got to the present day?
I worked for 15 years at Beacon Building Products, the largest publicly traded building materials distributor in North America. During my time there, the company grew from $1 billion to $8 billion through a combination of 30-plus acquisitions and launches into new markets. I worked my way up from a trainee to a National Vice President, managing a $700-million business segment. I held roles in both sales management and operations, and was tasked with integrating several large acquisitions.
In 2022, when the founder of POSIBL presented this role to me at his newer company, I could not pass up the opportunity to build structure and accelerate a business in a very new, unique industry. Our business is really built on two core beliefs: one, that with the right technology, you can produce indoor-quality flower in a high-tech greenhouse in a more sustainable, cost-efficient and scalable way; and two, that like most industries, vertical integration is too hard and expensive, and that focusing on our core strength (cultivation) and partnering with brands that are focused on consumer acquisition is a better way to scale. That philosophy has led us to work with over a dozen brand partners representing several of the top 100 highest selling brands in California.
What tool or software in your cultivation space can you not live without?
The tool in our cultivation space that we cannot live without is our newly installed PRIVA climate and irrigation system, which creates smart greenhouses with leading edge technology that can steer a crop through climate and irrigation strategies. PRIVA creates optimal water flow through every part of the growing process from pre-treatment to fertilizing to post-treatment and recycling. Not only are we growing smarter, but we are now growing even safer with more environmentally friendly operations.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your business in the last six months?
Push sensors are less than $100 and make a strong, positive impact on our day-to-day operations. Push sensors give us the ability to coordinate controls with humidity and other sensors, which ultimately control the ultimate climate in our greenhouses and curing rooms.
What cultivation technique are you most interested in right now, and what are you actively studying (the most)?
We are currently cultivating under a plant empowerment approach, creating plants with higher quality, more yields and far more resiliency, driven by a data-driven growing philosophy based on physics and plant physiology.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?
Failures have only made us stronger and provided us the opportunity to evolve our growing strategy to provide the best quality and biggest yields through plant density in our valves. When we started, the valves were set up to support lower density and lower crops per year, but ultimately hurt us in annual yield. Over time, we have learned a commitment to production planning is the key to success in a fast-paced industry, and higher density and faster turn rates have set us up for success.
What advice would you give to a smart, driven grower about to enter the legal, regulated industry? What advice should they ignore?
By respecting the history of legacy cannabis horticulture, combined with the efficiencies of the ag industry, you will set up an operation for ultimate success. It’s important to create a profitable operation in this current market by understanding the art of cannabis growing with strategic planning like controlling costs, production planning, regulating compliance, and demand forecasting. In a hyper-growth industry, typical advice would be to move faster or you may lose out, but the smarter move is to be patient. Take the time to trial new growing techniques, different strains, etc. before investing lots of time and energy.
How do you deal with burnout?
Appreciation of the cannabis plant keeps me from burning out in this fast-growing industry. Keeping in mind that this industry is still in its early stages and still has so much more to develop is extremely motivating. It’s amazing to see how impactful our operation can be in California and beyond.
How do you motivate your employees/team?
I have found that recognition and providing transparency to the team are key motivators and differentiators from other cannabis companies. Recognizing employees empowers people to continue to be their best as an individual contributor and team player. Also, providing context and perspective to the team on everchanging operations gives us the ability to adapt and continuously improve on our execution.
What keeps you awake at night?
The future of this industry is outside of our control as its success is heavily impacted by regulation in the government from taxes to operations to financing and more.
What helps you sleep at night?
Every year, we are experiencing an increase in public support towards legal cannabis, regardless of political party. It will only be a matter of time until federal policy matches the majority of the people.
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