Shivawn Brady
Company: Justice Grown
Title: Director of Operations
Age: 32
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 wildfires ravaged the Northern California hillsides, Shivawn Brady and the team at Justice Grown were escorted by the local fire chief to harvest the company’s 2017 crop. Two weeks of smoky, 12-hour shifts is just one example of Brady’s dedication to her co-workers and the industry.
“I get a mushy feeling in my heart when I think about Justice Grown,” she says. “I personally see my co-workers as zeitgeists of social change and civil responsibility, everyday heroes walking around with invisible capes.”
Brady is the director of operations for Justice Grown, an Illinois-based cannabis company of “dedicated farmers and activists founded by civil rights attorneys” that also has a license to operate in Sonoma County, California. She says they are like family.
“The compassion and patience we all have for one another is really beautiful,” she says. “The people and the culture they created, that’s my favorite part of working with cannabis.”
Brady started her career in the cannabis industry while still in high school by trimming under the table for friends with medical grows. Her knack for the work led to her managing local trimming crews until out-of-state headhunters began calling.
“Before I knew it, I was getting contracts to manage commercial cannabis harvests for growers all across the Pacific Northwest,” she says. “I ended up gleaning a great cannabis cultivation education from these master growers, sometimes second- or third-generation farmers.”
After her stint in the Northwest, Brady returned home to Sonoma County to help oversee operations for Justice Grown and serve on the county’s cannabis board — a task that’s becoming incredibly more complicated as opposing forces seek to put cannabis businesses out of business.
“I’m very focused on fulfilling my role as a member of the Sonoma County Cannabis Advisory Committee,” Brady says. “I was appointed last year, and I have another year and a half to do my best to represent the community and her needs.”