Washington state's pot-repreneurs
Dot-bong, Marijuana Inc., the Green Rush: Call it what you will, the burgeoning legal marijuana industry in Washington state is drawing pot prospectors of all stripes.
Microsoft veterans and farmers, real estate agents and pastry chefs, former journalists and longtime pot growers alike are seeking new challenges - and fortunes - in the production, processing and sale of a drug that has been illegal for generations.
Daniel Curylo laughs while posing with some of the marijuana plants that he uses for marketing purposes in Seattle, Wash., Nov. 13, 2013.
If legal pot is the "Green Rush," Curylo has some unique credentials: He's been an actual prospector. He helped put himself through college working for a company that flew him into northern British Columbia and the Yukon with a map, a compass and a heavy backpack.
Another source of income in those days? Growing and selling marijuana with a few other political science majors. A former techie and ex-house flipper, Curylo, 41, says his background in "business development and taking risks" is perfect for the legal pot world.
He has invested $400,000 so far. His goal? A cannabis business park northwest of Olympia that would feature his growing operation, Cascade Crops, as well as retail stores run by his mother, father and aunt.
The "Green Rush"
Paul Schrag holds two cloned plants that will be used to grow medical marijuana, in Tacoma, Wash., Nov. 13, 2013.
Schrag has a simple philosophy: He hopes to use his skills to do the most good in the world. For a while, that meant working in journalism.
Before being laid off in 2009, he worked as a reporter for the Business Examiner, a biweekly publication in Tacoma. Nowadays, it means working in the pot industry.
The 40-year-old says he's been growing marijuana since 1999 and uses it to treat lifelong neck pain. He began working at a medical marijuana collective, where part of his job entails coming up with a marketing and public education plan to help erase any stigma associated with cannabis use.
He believes the medical and social benefits of the plant are only just starting to be understood.
The "Green Rush"
Cecilia Sivertson stands in her office in Lynnwood, Wash., Nov. 14, 2013.
Sivertson worked for eight years as a paralegal in the prosecutor's office for Washington's most populous county.
She helped make sure people paid child support and tracked down deadbeat dads. It was a rewarding, stressful and sometimes depressing job. After her husband died in a car accident in 2001, she decided she needed a more upbeat line of work and joined a labeling business.
At 55-years-old, she has epilepsy and arthritis in her hands. About two years ago, she says, she noticed improvement in both when she started using marijuana. Last spring, she began making products infused with cannabis oil under her "Nana's Secret" line.
Her specialty is pot-infused soda. The Alabama native says she's applying to become a licensed marijuana processor so her sodas and other items can be sold in retail pot stores.
The "Green Rush"
Angel Swanson poses in front of a display of glass pipes at her medical marijuana dispensary in Tacoma, Wash., Nov. 15, 2013.
Swanson was raised on the South Side of Chicago by a mother who warned, "If you see drugs, run."
Decades later, the businesswoman and real estate agent found herself in Washington state with a husband, seven children and a strong bias against illegal drugs - "the poster child for anti-cannabis," she says.
That is, until one of her daughters, who had serious digestive issues and had never weighed more than 100 pounds, came home from college one day and ate a full plate of food.
The girl had tried pot-laced cookies, which stimulated her appetite. Swanson lost it. "Do you have any idea the sacrifices that have been made for you to go to college," she remembers saying.
Swanson, 52, did some research and couldn't find a reason for her daughter not to use marajuana. She and her husband opened a medical marijuana dispensary, The Cannabis Emporium, near Tacoma.
The "Green Rush"
Yevgeniy "Eugene" Frid, general manager of A Greener Today, holds a container of a marijuana strain called Scoobie Doobie "High CBD" in Seattle, Wash., Nov. 12, 2013.
Frid previously struggled with an addiction to prescription painkillers and cannabis played a huge role in his recovery.
Frid, 28, quit his management and marketing job when a friend asked him to help start a medical marijuana dispensary.
A Greener Today opened in Seattle in 2012 and now serves about 4,000 people. Frid says his most gratifying work is helping patients get off opiates the way he did, so he has mixed feelings about applying for a recreational retail license.
The "Green Rush"
Marla Molly Poiset, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained French pastry chef, stands in her home in Seattle, Nov. 12, 2013.
Poiset had swapped her 30-year-old home furnishing store and interior design business in Colorado for a life of world travel when she learned some devastating news: Her eldest daughter had leukemia.
She suspended her travels to help her daughter, then continued her tour, attending cooking school in Paris.
Poiset, 59, graduated last spring, and had an idea: "Blending my newfound patisserie skills with medical cannabis for people like my daughter," she says.
So she abandoned Paris for Seattle, where she's been developing recipes for marijuana-infused chocolate truffles for recreational and medical use.
The "Green Rush"
Bilye Miller, left, and her partner Todd Spaits stand in their home in Kirkland, Wash., Nov. 11, 2013.
The couple doesn't use pot, "I much prefer a glass of scotch," Spaits says, but they say they know a good business opportunity when they see one.
The pair previously worked in online marketing in San Diego. Their most recent startup is skyfu.com, which helps restaurants monitor what people are saying about them on social media.
Spaits, 39, believes his skills are perfectly honed to run a successful pot store. He and Miller are excited about Washington's grand experiment. They sought advice from friends who operate medical dispensaries in California to help draw up a revenue model and are seeking a retail license in Kirkland, east of Seattle.
The "Green Rush"
Steve Smith poses at his home in Gig Harbor, Wash., Nov. 13, 2013.
Smith, 29, had a background in food marketing. His father worked for a large grocery cooperative in California. He earned a degree in agriculture business management and started marketing organic and natural products for a food broker.
A friend who was working in security suggested Smith do the same. Looking to keep busy and make some extra money, he took his training and became a certified security guard.
The company that hired him happened to assign him to a couple of medical marijuana dispensaries. "You can only work as a guard for so long before you want to open your own shop," he says. He now wants to apply to open two retail marijuana shops near Tacoma.
The "Green Rush"
Bruce King holds a three-week-old piglet on his farm in Arlington, Wash., Nov. 14, 2013.
King says he was a 22-year-old high-school dropout when Microsoft hired him as its 80th employee in 1986. A software engineer, he eventually left and started his own businesses.
He later started breeding pigs north of Seattle. After Washington legalized marijuana last fall, he looked at pot as any other crop. The potential margins were "fabulously attractive," he says.
He found a farm with a 25,000-square-foot barn for a marijuana operation. King, 50, doesn't like pot himself, but says, "If people are going to eat a stupid drug, they should eat my stupid drug."