By Daniel Vaillancourt
Dan grew up watching his grandfather grow vegetables in his greenhouse and later began cloning random plants on hikes with his parents, rooting them on the windowsill. He couldn’t think of anything more interesting then cultivating and propagating plants, it was then that he realized that cultivation of some sort would be his calling. In the late 90’s the nearest University to take a horticulture class was near his older brother’s house so he bunked with him while attending it, little did he know his brother would introduce him to a much more fun plant to grow! After attending horticulture school and soaking up all the knowledge he could Dan was eager to put his skills to work in the ever-evolving cannabis industry and stop learning about the botanical names of random plants. He saw his brother growing cannabis indoors in soil and knew from everything he learned about plants that there were better ways with hydroponics, so he quickly went to work.
Dan started designing and constructing various advanced automated hydroponics systems and experimenting with different strains, techniques, and lighting. He became a true mad scientist in the grow room and would stay up all night reading on the internet, making notes and designing rooms. He obsessed over his new hobby so much that he would draw random rooms or facilities and then design them just for fun and to sharpen his skills. He started a landscaping company to keep his new hobby a float while he helped thousands of people’s gardens flourish and mastered soil growing along side of his indoor hydroponics ventures.
In the early 2000’s when the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations (MMAR) was released Dan saw an opportunity to put hone his skills while helping people and became a designated grower for two men, one with HIV and one with Parkinson’s disease. The cannabis helped them both tremendously and if he wasn’t hooked on cultivating cannabis before Dan certainly was now.
During the medical marijuana boom in Canada Dan had helped countless people design, setup and cultivate their cannabis, dreaming and joking with friends of a day when nonmedical customers could grow it and it would be sold in stores. Propagating his skills and waiting for the day it became legalized for recreational purposes so an entirely new industry could sprout.
Fast forwarding to 2018 people began getting wind that cannabis could be legalized in Canada soon which would allow recreational growing on a large scale and every home in Canada to grow up to 4 plants. Knowing he needed to be on the front lines of this Dan and his girlfriend had already thought up a company name for this unique new business idea, 4trees Cannabis Building. On October 17th, 2018, the thing he had only dreamed of happening finally came to light, cannabis was legalized for recreational purposes in Canada. He wasted no time at all and on the very next day registered 4trees Cannabis Building with the government.
Having a unique skillset in the cannabis industry with a love for the cannabis plant, engineering, and hydroponics 4trees Cannabis Building was born. Over the decades Dan became a true master at not only cultivating cannabis, dealing with customers but also the engineering of sterile grow rooms and environments. He knew that the cannabis industry had a lack of clean-cut professionals in this area and was eager to share his proficiency with the world.
The industry is broken up into two parts, the recreational industry which Dan was anxious to help build and the medical industry which he had helped build up to this point. On the recreational side of things, the governments were allowing multiple licensing options, some of the most popular being Micro-Cultivation or Licensed Producer in Canada and Tier 1,2 & 3 in the US. All offering similar recreational sales of cannabis with different canopy size allowances.
Dan and his team quickly began working closely with the governments, learning all the strict regulations and guidelines put in place so that he could replicate that and streamline this for the average customer. Building a recreational facility is nothing like the creation of a medical facility. The medical guidelines where to have some bars on your windows, some cameras and not be in the vicinity of a school amongst a few others, where the recreational guidelines could fill a small book. Our job at 4trees is to simplify everything from the initial floorplans to final harvesting techniques and everything in between so that the average customer wanting to get into the legal sale of cannabis can jump right in without a headache.
The governments legalizing cannabis knew how to keep things sterile but needed help from professional cultivators to design a proper working flow. 4trees jumped into that right away in 2018 and since then has mastered the art of indoor cultivation facility design at any scale.
Paving the way for an entirely new business in the cannabis sector came with a slew of obstacles for 4trees to overcome. From taxing blueprints that require an abundance of government regulations and calculations to highly detailed project management or apprenticeship programs.
Although our hats hang in British Columbia Canada, we are proud to work all over the world anywhere that cannabis is legalized. To date the team at 4trees has proudly designed over 887,000ft2 of indoor cultivation space and helped countless customers get into the recreational industry. Helping teach growers how to farm in a craft, sustainable manner. 4trees offers facility design, project management, cannabis consulting, apprenticeships, business planning, analytics, and cultivation equipment.
Starting a company is hard but starting a completely new industry that has not existed before from the ground up is even harder! If 4trees wasn’t a unique combination of Dan’s passions this would not have worked out at all. If I where to give one piece of business advice to someone it would be to put in the time and learn everything there is to know about your industry before starting a company. Be great at what you do, treat people the way you would want to be treated and you will most likely be successful.
Behind every great business there is years and sometimes even decades of trial and error poured into it, what most people generally see is only the tip of the iceberg.
We are glad to help cultivators that have already been in this industry growing for years transition and continue to do so legally in the recreational market so that they can get paid what they deserve.
4trees is proud to offer craft, sustainable farming on an automated commercial scale to customers. Our advanced cultivation facilities offer over 90% water savings over traditional soil or drain to waste style growing methods while also offering solar, LED or water recapture systems that re use water expelled from the plants, additionally cutting electrical and water consumption down dramatically.
Being on the front lines of cannabis cultivation and development for 24 years has given us the edge that is required in this budding industry to help our customers succeed, and we look forward to helping the world grow craft quality cannabis.
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