Hunter Neubauer
Company: Oregrown
Title: Chairman of the board
Age: 34
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.
Around 2014, a lot of people in Oregon dove into the cannabis industry. Hunter Neubauer dove in and started handing out life-preservers.
The 34-year-old from Chicago has embedded himself in the industry, taking on roles in several organizations advocating for growth, economic stimulus, political balance, fair regulations and a chance for other operators to achieve what he calls his biggest milestone — “surviving Oregon.”
Many operators in Oregon have been suffering under the tremendous weight of the 2017 harvest, but Oregrown has been steadily gaining momentum — a credit to the company’s staff, Neubauer says.
“If you can survive in Oregon, you can survive anywhere,” he says. “With an ever-changing regulatory framework, this has been extremely difficult to sustain.”
Neubauer is the chairman of the legislative committee for the Oregon Cannabis Association, a member of the Bend Rules Advisory Committee, the Deschutes County Marijuana Committee, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s rules committee and a founding board member of Celebrate Cannabis.
Neubauer devotes his time to help each organization support the industry, all while also working as the chairman of the board for Oregrown, a vertically-integrated cannabis business in Bend. However, a great deal of Neubauer’s work ethic was developed outside the industry while he was working in medical care, selling orthopedic implants.
“It taught me selflessness, a deep sense of responsibility and how to work harder than I ever thought possible,” he says. “If I made a mistake, the surgeon could make a mistake, which could drastically affect the patient’s life. This has helped me in navigating the ever-evolving cannabis industry and its many challenges.”