Kevin McDermott
Director of Cultivation
The Green Solution
Denver, CO
Since our recent acquisition by Columbia Care, one of the nation’s leading multi-state cannabis operators, we’ve been hyper-focused on combining our cultivation expertise with theirs to use the strength of this partnership to make our grows even stronger. Streamlining our cultivation practices allows us to continue to increase the quality for our distribution to The Green Solution’s 21 retail stores throughout Colorado. In total, Columbia Care has just under 1 million square feet of bloom canopy — providing lots of areas, quite literally, that we can learn more from as a team.
At our grow facilities, we are currently evaluating improvements that would enhance our lighting, HVAC controls, water filtration and more. This is exciting stuff for the cultivation team, because these improvements have the potential to make our product even better.
As always, our cultivation team is hyper-focused on three things: quality, yield and efficiency. Our operations are constantly in motion to identify innovative ways to move the needle just a little bit higher in any of these three areas. This could be as simple as our cleaning techniques and understanding the true difference between cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting, especially in today’s climate. We have a motto in our cultivation center: “A clean grow is a happy grow.” But clean can be relative, so we have better defined what it means to be “clean” at TGS. Within the past several years, we have implemented procedures to minimize human contact with our products, from cultivation to consumer. All of our flower is individually sealed, nitrogen-packed and date stamped to guarantee freshness, for example.
As much as growing cannabis is about plants, it is even more about the people. I am continually working with our team to refine how we do things and finding new ways to improve our employee’s satisfaction with their jobs. We have incredible employees who take enormous pride in what they create and provide to our customers. Taking time out of each day to show our appreciation for their efforts is a huge part of what we do as leaders to help ensure we can achieve and improve our success.