Chris Woods
Company: Terrapin Care Station
Title: CEO
Age: 35
For the past 12 months, the editorial staff at Marijuana Venture has compiled a list of candidates for our third annual 40 Under 40 feature. This year, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of worthy candidates to come up with a cross-section of personalities across the U.S. and Canada, from salt-of-the-earth farmers to tech savants. All of them have unique stories, successes and ambitions and all represent the excitement and promise of the cannabis business. We feel honored to share their stories and look forward to watching them push forward in our ever-evolving industry.
Chris Woods had every intention of becoming a math professor until the death of his father pushed him in a new direction. As the only son of a real estate developer, Woods took over running his father’s business while studying for his master’s degree in applied math at the University of Colorado Boulder. But Woods saw an opportunity in Colorado’s emerging medical marijuana industry and his entrepreneurial spirit took over.
“One thing led to another and as I was graduating grad school I was able to merge real estate, math, engineering and cannabis into an entrepreneurial activity,” Woods says.
At 26, he took the money he earned from running his father’s businesses and started Terrapin Care Station, the first licensed medical dispensary in Boulder.
As the company’s sole owner and CEO, Woods has led Terrapin through eight years of growth and a rapid expansion into new markets.
Terrapin now has five locations in Colorado and holds one of the 12 production licenses in Pennsylvania. The company is also opening in Oregon later this year, employing more than 200 people across the country.
“I think what’s unique about Terrapin is that there’s no investment money or partners involved,” he says. “We control the entire vertical supply chain in most of our operations.”