Evan Nison Age: 26 Company: NisonCo. Position: Owner and founder Location: Washington, D.C. “But I kept thinking, ‘This is not me. I want to be an advocate,’” Nison says. Then he got an offer to work as a lobbyist for Terra Tech, a marijuana cultivation company. “They said they would hire me to do what I was already doing – working on legalization,” Nison says. “I have a lot of connections both in the industry and the policy side, and that is when the light bulb went on. And it was literally the offer I could not refuse.” He went on to found NisonCo., a cannabis-specific PR firm, at the beginning of 2014. “There was originally a negative reaction from the movement because there was a natural instinct for the movement not to trust the industry,” he says. However, those doubts have been assuaged by more than two years of steady performance. When Nison was appointed to the board of directors for NORML, he was one of the youngest in the organization’s 40-year history. “It is clearly a new era for legalization advocacy,” he says. “Repositioning for the post-legalization world is a fascinating and challenging time as organizations and entrepreneurs change their mission statements and focus to adapt to the times.”
Evan Nison
After college, Evan Nison faced a bit of a conundrum about where his next steps would take him. He had been involved with Students for Sensible Drug Policy for several years when he started getting job offers within the cannabis industry.