Bio

If my career could be summed up in a sentence, I am a creator, problem solver, and solutions provider across verticals and on a national and international level. With 30 years of legal, business, and public service experience, I have enjoyed serving as a federal prosecutor, presidential appointee, and US delegate and worked as a corporate attorney, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and turn-around expert. I also have been engaged in mentoring and philanthropy most of my adult life. These experiences give me a unique and well-informed perspective which I bring to the nascent cannabis industry. In my business life I have acquired and operated companies steeped in chaos and tangled in regulatory and financial difficulties and restored them to fiscal health and compliance, creating jobs along the way. I have insisted on the highest ethical standards for the many businesses I have owned, led, or advised. And, most of all, I am an expert in making order out of chaos and navigating change, with the deep understanding of the disruption inherent in any transition. Not surprisingly, when, I unintentionally entered the cannabis industry by writing a winning application in 2015 for 1 of 15 cultivation licenses in the state of Maryland, I ended up deeply involved. Today, I am the Treasurer of the Marijuana Policy Project, an architect of the state-by-state approach to federal legalization and the Founder and Chair of the Board of the Council for Federal Cannabis Regulation Foundation (CFCR). The Council includes Food and Drug Administration/National Institutes of Health scientists, lawyers, professionals in government relations, policy, and cannabis industry executives as well as leading voices on social justice and equity. These best-in-class professionals work with the FDA and other federal agencies on regulating the cannabis industry. Joining the Council for Federal Cannabis Regulation and contracting with Artemis Holdings Group is critical to a well-informed strategic entry into the cannabis industry.