With a little more than 18 months invested, Steve Bustamante is still relatively new to the cannabis industry, but he believes he has found his calling.
“I love cannabis,” he says. “I love everything about it.”
As the inventory control supervisor for Glass House Brands, a vertically integrated cannabis company in California, Bustamante is the halfway step between processing and sales. When the manufacturing side of the business finishes processing plant material, Bustamante receives it into the company’s inventory and handles it much like a third-party distributor would, keeping records of the exact weight being received, sold and stored in the company’s warehouse.
For Bustamante, who has a degree from Humboldt State University in wildlife management and conservation, overseeing mass quantities of a federally controlled substance is a big change from his last job, working as a contractor with the federal government to study wildlife and help save endangered species and habitats. Although he loved the work, there was no guarantee of a full-time position and the contracts only covered about six months a year, leaving him looking for odd jobs to bridge the gaps.
“You can imagine how that feels to go from a job you love to working at a restaurant,” he says. “I got tired of it. Now, I am paving my own path … and I see myself growing in the company and within the industry.”
— Patrick Wagner