HURON, Ohio – PRESS RELEASE – Ohio Patients’ Choice (OPC) was awarded its certificate of operation by the Ohio Department of Commerce after successfully completing an inspection with state officials. OPC was the second Level I cultivator to pass state inspections and began growing medical cannabis in Huron shortly after receiving the certificate.
“This is an exciting milestone for our team, for the Ohio program, for the City of Huron but most importantly for Ohio’s patients. This project has been over two years in the making and, particularly over the past nine months, required superhuman efforts and personal sacrifice from many members of our construction team, our staff and our ownership group. The level of dedication and collaboration exhibited in raising a world-class facility from a cornfield and recruiting a world-class team to operate it in such little time is unprecedented. Our collective commitment to a singular mission-–to provide Ohio’s patients with the highest quality, natural alternatives to modern prescription drugs-–is what got us here today,” said Ohio Patients’ Choice CEO Jeff McCourt, a corporate regulatory attorney and entrepreneur with several years of experience working with medical cannabis companies.
OPC’s headquarters is located in Huron, Ohio, a rapidly growing lakefront community with deep agricultural roots and unparalleled access to nature and recreational destinations. “OPC’s state-of-the-art controlled environment greenhouse improves upon the unnatural indoor methods traditionally utilized by most commercial cannabis growers, allowing us to rely primarily upon the full-spectrum of natural sunlight to nourish our crop with greater efficiency and fewer emissions. And we’ve adopted best practices from the food and pharmaceutical industries to ensure quality and consistency of the medications we produce. In designing this facility, rather than looking backward and following how the cannabis industry has evolved from basements and closet growing environments, we took cues from several of our neighbors in the region with decades of experience in controlled-environment, commercial-scale agricultural. A highly sophisticated computer automation system constantly monitors and tightly controls all aspects of cultivation from seed to harvest,” said Greg Cozzens, OPC’s compliance director, who spent the past 10 years as the global compliance director for a multinational agricultural company.
“OPC’s focus on sustainability includes more than just being good stewards of the environment; we also emphasize being good neighbors in the community and supporting other local businesses. In building this facility, we have invested more than $8 million in contracts with local businesses, which included more than 119 area trade workers engaged in the construction phase. To date, OPC has hired over 25 employees that constitute our startup team, and we anticipate continued rapid growth from here. These positions were filled by a mix of local talent as well as other Ohioans who moved to the region because of their shared commitment to our vision,” said OPC’s Chief Financial Officer George Elmer, a seasoned financial executive with significant experience in the healthcare field. OPC was highlighted among the top economic moves in 2017-2018 by the Erie County Economic Development Corporation at its recent Annual Meeting.
OPC anticipates that its first harvest will occur in December, with a goal of having product on shelf for registered patients by year end.
