Lindsey Pate
Company: Glass House Grown
Title: CEO and co-founder
Age: 31
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.
After college, Lindsey Pate struggled to find the one thing she was going to dedicate the rest of her life to studying.
“When you’re a biologist, you’re either going to be teaching or researching something that you are so passionate about that you could do it until you’re bone dry,” she says.
Fueled by her passion for evolutionary biology, Pate discovered her true passion when she first started growing cannabis for Oregon’s medical market in 2014. Now a 10-time award-winning producer and processor, Pate is in the final stage of bringing Glass House Grown to the recreational sector.
The centerpiece of Glass House Grown will be its Dutch-style, rigid-frame greenhouse with its dual-polycarbonate coverings, fully automated light deprivation, supplemental lighting and a Current Culture hydroponics system that allows the company to be environmentally sustainable.
Pate embraces automation as a way to remain competitive in Oregon’s increasingly hostile cannabis market.
“I’m lucky that my husband is not only a second-generation grower, who grew in both the Netherlands and the U.S.,” she says, “but he also worked under nuclear security clearance in the U.S. Air Force so he sees automation and technology as something to embrace.”
The company focuses on high-end flower and solventless rosin, which keeps Pate on the hunt for the perfect phenotypes.
“We tend to look for quick maturation rates,” Pate says, pointing out the company’s success with a Shishkaberry back-cross and its Blackberry Cream. “We’re always looking for diversity. What don’t we have? A lot of the top-shelf genetics have long, slow maturation rates, but we’re looking for quality and fast turnaround.”