Let's get cannabis to work COVID-19 has caused unemployment to surge across all industries including cannabis. Karson Humiston the CEO of Vangst, the cannabis industry's largest staffing company joins Larry Mishkin and Jim Marty to provide both a real-time cannabis employment report and future employment insight. Produced by PodCONX https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin https://podconx.com/guests/jim-marty https://podconx.com/guests/rob-hunt
Let's get cannabis to work
COVID-19 has caused unemployment to surge across all industries including cannabis. Karson Humiston the CEO of Vangst, the cannabis industry's largest staffing company joins Jim Marty and Larry Mishkin to provide both a real-time cannabis employment report and future employment insight.
https://podconx.com/guests/karson-humiston
https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkin
https://podconx.com/guests/jim-marty
https://podconx.com/guests/rob-hunt
Jim Marty: [00:00:00] So it looks like. It's.
Jim Marty: [00:00:36] Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Deadhead Cannabis show. Jim Marty calling in from snowy 8 inches of snow overnight and today, Longmont, Colorado got Larry Mishkin on the line with me.
Jim Marty: [00:00:51] Hello, Larry.
Larry Mishkin: [00:00:52] Jim Marty, always nice to talk to you. Sorry to hear about the eight inches or maybe not to make these very pretty and relaxing with all of this other crazy stuff going on here in Chicago. It's just chilly. We're not really getting any snow. We're not getting any sign. It's just an overcast and windy and cold. So sheltering at home doesn't seem like such a bad thing to be doing right now. But otherwise, all is good. As we continue the countdown to the filing deadline for Illinois, adult use, applications for freethrow cultivation and for processing and for transportation. It's always fun. I'm sure you've gone through these this stage of the last few weeks, a number of times yourself team working with players where all of a sudden people come up with a brand new idea that they want to throw against the wall to see what you think. And oh boy, sure, you want to go down this road and the next thing you know, it's to get crazy, but it's fun.
Jim Marty: [00:01:44] Yes. Well, we are very fortunate today to have a guest on the Deadhead Cannabis show. We have Karson Humiston, who is the daughter of a producer Dan Humiston. Welcome, Karson.
Karson Humiston: [00:01:59] Great to be here. Thanks. Yeah. I was saying to my dad, like, you've been at this podcasts for a while and I haven't gotten the invitation yet, so I appreciate you guys thinking of me since he hasn't. Great, great.
Larry Mishkin: [00:02:12] Karson, let me just say that it's a pleasure to have you on. Yeah. Know we had a you know, give your dad a little bit of a hard time about it, but it's just so that there is no mistake of you or anyone listening to you or a guest on our show because of you, because of what you've accomplished as much of a big fan of your father's as I am and all the things that he's also accomplished in the space. I think that the most interesting part of your story is really the story itself and how you went from a college graduate to literally within a year or to being the owner of a nationally recognized. It's known internationally by at this point, number one. Cannabis placement company around. Do you ever stop to just try and catch your breath and just think about everything that's going on between then and now?
Karson Humiston: [00:03:01] No, because there's just so much.
Karson Humiston: [00:03:03] I mostly I'm just saying, like, you know, we're in when we've done placements in 25 states and I have how can we get into more states faster? So I'm mostly thinking about all the work that still needs to be done. But it has been like a totally whirlwind for four years. The name of my business is vanquished, which means catch in Dutch and where are the Cannabis Industries hiring marketplace? So we help Cannabis businesses get connected with their employees and we do so in two ways. We help them get connected with their full time employees and we help them get connected with their temporary employees, which we call banks gigs where candidates make profiles, they're screened and vetted by us and then they can actually apply to companies gigs and clock out and talking and clock out directly through the platform. So that's the name of the business and all of that about what we do.
Jim Marty: [00:04:02] And other than connecting employers and employees, do you offer other human resource services?
Karson Humiston: [00:04:09] We go. And so we you know, we are what our swim line is, is matching. And so we focus on bringing on the best Cannabis companies onto our platform and the best candidates and making sure that those connections happen. And, you know, I think the kiss of death for a lot of startups is focusing on way too many things. And so there are certainly H.R. experts out there, whether that be payroll or H.R. consulting services. And we've a lot of partners who we refer our clients to. But we focus on one thing and I think we do the best.
Larry Mishkin: [00:04:45] Excellent. Well, Karson, let me just step in for a minute and said, because there's somebody who is noidea. Well, none of this really comes as a surprise to me when I first met you a few years ago. You were just finishing up in school. Was that your dad's first international Cannabis Associates Association conference in Las Vegas with his partner, Dan Hirsch? And as I recall, it was it was about as Wild West as you could get in terms of trying to run a show. And I think between you and I know Dan's wife, Christy was there, but everybody was scrambling all over the place and somehow the whole thing got pulled off. And Jim was the speaker there that weekend as well. And it was really kind of exciting because you're you're down and down version. I had just been to Seattle, so. Second, over MJB conference with about 700 people in the race track, which is where I first met him and saw him do a presentation for the first time. Then here was your dad, you know, bringing together a Cannabis conference, which would go on to really become a big name of the industry, too. But I always thought that a big part of the untold story, again, was the work that you did behind the scenes of that know Donne's Wave crested behind the scenes. And I remember talking to your dad about it at the time. So, you know, to what are you going to be? You go into the industry, what are you going to do? And who knows? But we get it. Here you are. So it was really nice to be able to see and watch people progress through the industry really from coming in without knowing very much about it. You know, putting themselves in a position like regret. Now, you guys, in many instances, I assume, become like the go to people when folks need information about hiring and employment in the industry.
Karson Humiston: [00:06:29] Yeah, you know what I think?
Karson Humiston: [00:06:32] Larry, I think actually one thing that you shared with me is you saw our salary guide reference throughout some applications in Illinois. And so we do put a lot of content out around jobs. And so we every year we come out with the bank's salary guide, where we survey about 3000 license Cannabis businesses like the top 10 most hired positions.
Karson Humiston: [00:06:52] And and to be able to come up with the data around how much you should be paying a bartender and how much you should be paying a director of cultivation and what the benefits look like and any kind of tracking year over year, how those how the pay changes. So in that regard, I think that we have a chance to define the best practices in this industry. And people look to us when they're coming up with their hiring plan and thinking through, okay, what we're gonna hire 10 bartenders, what will we need to pay them? And I'm glad that we can like be able to bring our clients together. And our clients are willing to share that information so that we can share it with companies that are just getting started and goes.
Jim Marty: [00:07:34] And what are the states right now where there's a lot of activity? Yeah.
Karson Humiston: [00:07:37] So for us are our most active states right now today, our Colorado and California. And those actually have been pretty much our most active states since launching. But some new states that we're really excited about while we're taking up a lot of steam is in Michigan. So that's one. And actually Oklahoma. So Michigan and Obama were two. They're kind of surprised me around like the number of jobs that are being created. So those are obviously like with Colvard. I think a lot of I think the whole world is on a hiring freeze and a while. Cannabis is an essential service on a place. They certainly don't think Cannabis is immune to it. So hiring we see in full time hiring at Liesman to fill is down as the pandemic continues to go on. But before the pandemic hit, like I was saying, Michigan and Oklahoma were two states that were growing quickly and jobs are being created quickly. That that were that were brand now.
Jim Marty: [00:08:33] I agree with a lot of activity in Illinois too.
Karson Humiston: [00:08:36] Yeah, yeah. Illinois as well.
Karson Humiston: [00:08:38] Yeah. I was just going to say what is good for northern Illinois were themselfs. Really? Was it about 10 days from now? We're supposed to get the announcements from the state as to who gets the 75 new adult use dispensary licenses. And I imagine once those people find out who they are, the very first thing they're going to really need to do is start figuring out how they're staffing their source.
Karson Humiston: [00:09:00] Yeah, exactly.
Karson Humiston: [00:09:01] So I I'm I'm I'm thinking about that lot. I'm optimistic that it will. The licenses will still come out despite all the other things going on.
Karson Humiston: [00:09:11] So it'll be interesting to see you actually get a lot of calls about that. And, you know, it's hard to say for sure. choicer dispensary licenses go. You know, they were all submitted at the very beginning of January. So my hope is that there was enough time, at least before the initial Oviatt viruses, Mourning's came out that they were able to get some of that done. The one thing we don't know, which I think will ultimately play a big role in this, is that were the people who were scoring the applications, given access to the application information remotely. Remember, in the medical realm, that was a big thing that it all had to be done at the particular department's facility, that everything was kept there. So there could be no chance of people pulling any shenanigans or anything. So we'll see if they were able to get it done. But that is a big talking point. And you're right, there will be, I think, very indicative of what's happening in the market. What I do we could do right now.
Jim Marty: [00:10:04] I believe it would be 40 craft licenses for craft cultivators in Illinois, 40, 40.
Karson Humiston: [00:10:11] But for our '30s, there will be 40 producer licenses and transportation licenses and there is no specific number limit on transportation licenses. We see that that's going to turn out to be more of a if you meet the qualifications, you can become the transportation business, but the class to get a. Having access to the types of vehicles that you need make it prohibitive for most people, I think at this point to trade just over to do it.
Jim Marty: [00:10:44] He has been working on some craft business plans for Illinois and though I was surprised that they're fairly good size. I was working on one that was around 15000 square feet for projecting sales between 5 and 10 million. So I wouldn't let that crap monikers throw you off. It can still be a very good small business.
Larry Mishkin: [00:11:09] Well, I think it's going to be huge in Illinois. Jim, we know the thing to keep in mind and this is true for you, too. Kurson through the beginning up to the beginning of April, the Illinois Dougherty's program had a hundred million dollars in sales. Now, this is considering that there's only maybe a total of 50 active dispensaries in the entire state and the product supply levels are so sketchy that half the time these places are only open for a few hours during the day because they've run out of product. But the demand here is so great that they can't keep up with it. And I think that that's going to really drive these new dispensaries and the new cultivation centers. And sure, we would have 5000 square feet of cannabis space to start. If you could develop a good genetics, you can make a name for yourself and grow in no time. Which leads me to drugs. You guys work with with growers, also persons you have connections with. With growers.
Karson Humiston: [00:12:08] Yeah. So like cultivating companies are some of our biggest clients, especially on the on demand side. So because it's so seasonal and companies have harvest, they all need 10 trimmers or 4 or you know, 10 just horticulture staff or a short term period and they use banks. Gigs are on demand platform pretty heavily. And so trimming is one of the most common jobs that we fill on the on demand on the on demand side.
Jim Marty: [00:12:37] You match up temporary workers as well as full time.
Karson Humiston: [00:12:40] Yeah. So that's what banks gigs are, is it's all temporary. And so a company can make a profile day after to make a full file, they could screen by us. We verify their badge. If they're in a state that requires a badge like Colorado or Nevada, after we screen them, they're allowed into the marketplace, which is an online platform. And then they can see, oh, look, there's a trimming gig. They can apply to the gig. The customer can review the candidate. If the customer accepts the candidate, then the candidate goes to the location, they walk into the platform and they clock out and they're paid. So it's a temporary staffing. But we are doing all the connections Thawra through a technology rather than through like manual people making connections.
Larry Mishkin: [00:13:29] Well, to me, what I really like about that is that if you find yourself as a cultivator and all of a sudden, like you say seasonally or whatever, your harvest is ready to go. If you're doing it inside, all of a sudden you need Shrivers. You sure if you put out the word on the street. There's plenty of people who would commit and say they trimm for you. The real trick is finding people who actually know how to treat marijuana, I'm guessing. And that's where the value of your service forbin. If you're going to say to people, look, I'm not just giving you somebody. We've checked these people out. They know what they're doing.
Karson Humiston: [00:14:02] Yeah, exactly, Larry. And the compliance side is really big for us as well. So in Colorado, you have to have a med bag.
Karson Humiston: [00:14:08] You have to go to the marijuana enforcement division and get the badge number to work in a licensed facility. And so when someone makes a profile, they take a picture of their badge. We verify the bags with the marijuana enforcement division. So at a minimum, our customers know that everybody that we're sending to them has the right state qualifications to work the job. In Nevada, it's even stricter. And so there's certain licenses you need for and they call them in Nevada eejit cards. So there's certain agent cards that you need on the cultivation side, which are different than the retail side, which are different than the manufacturing side. So we make sure that the candidates have the right agent card in Nevada to to go into the facility. So I think that that's a huge piece of it.
Karson Humiston: [00:14:51] That's something that we offer that as a traditional non Cannabis specific hiring resource may not offer that.
Jim Marty: [00:15:00] I would imagine that many of your attempts go on to become full time employees. Does that transition happen often?
Karson Humiston: [00:15:07] Yeah. And so we definitely encourage that. I think, you know, ultimately our goal is to have Cannabis run on banksters. And so for every single person in the Cannabis base to have found their job through banks and a lot of times temporary employees are doing that or doing it to find a full time job. And so there's a way that our customers can seamlessly convert the candidates from our gig workers to their full time workers. And we we do that quite a bit.
Dan Humiston: [00:15:41] I want to take a quick break to thank you for listening to today's show and to invite you to listen to all the other great MJ PL's Cannabis podcast like Raising Cannabis Capital, the show which features Cannabis entreprenuers that are raising money to expand their organization. Tune in each week on Thursdays and Sundays to hear founders of awesome Cannabis companies talking about their business and their fundraising plans. Who knows? Maybe you'll discover the future Amazon or Apple of Cannabis on the Raising Cannabis Capital podcast.
Jim Marty: [00:16:15] That's very exciting. How do you like having your own business partners?
Karson Humiston: [00:16:18] I have financial partners and suffer for two years. I did not raise any capital. And then in twenty eighteen we raised a seed round. And then in twenty nineteen we raised a series A. And so with that brought on some venture capitalist funds, all institutional investors and so. Yes. So those are the partners that I have. I don't have any, I don't have a co-founder. So it's just me. But I'm lucky to have some v._c._r.s now backing us as well.
Jim Marty: [00:16:49] Have even taken advantage of any of the new federal programs for the cozied virus for Payroll Protection Act as one I'm thinking of. And economic disaster loans.
Karson Humiston: [00:17:01] Yeah. So unfortunately, the SBA was pretty clear around defining like marijuana businesses and marijuana related businesses and basically indicated that if you if you if any of your customers are marijuana businesses, you would be excluded. And so we went through the process of doing the diligence on it and ultimately decided not to apply because we are not 100 percent of our customers are marijuana businesses. And so did not think it was appropriate to apply for something that clearly spells out we can't apply. You know, I read an article today saying that it's already out. So unclear if we would have got it. But now we didn't apply.
Karson Humiston: [00:17:44] One thing that we are that I believe they can apply to is the payroll tax deferment. And so I think we're going to do that, which will be helpful.
Jim Marty: [00:17:55] Yes, I agree with what you're saying. We've studied quite a bit and they sort of come to the same conclusion that the payroll tax deferral is very important, that 6.2 percent of wages, basically that you can push us and pay until twenty twenty one in twenty twenty two. So that's a big break and there's some other credits. You know, some are for less than 50 employees, some are for a 50 to 100 employees. So there are some things out there that even Cannabis companies can take advantage of.
Karson Humiston: [00:18:26] Yeah. Yeah, that'll work. That's what we're focusing our attention on, just the things that we're eligible for. You know, I have friends who are just not friends, but I have peers who have Cannabis businesses and they apply for the loan. And, you know, maybe some of them will get approved. But I would suspect, particularly if there's a new administration. You know, if there is a world where Warren is the secretary of the treasury, I think that they would look pretty closely into this. And we just did not one take that type of a chance. So I wouldn't go for it.
Larry Mishkin: [00:19:04] Jim, let me ask you a question. If I can't really say. You know, just thing that hopefully there's a few attorneys or, you know, some of our peers who are active in the Cannabis industry out there. Will it be your understanding that somebody, let's say, like myself, who is an attorney, who primarily represents people of the Cannabis industry, that that would be enough of a disqualifier for my business to be able to get a small business loan or for other attorneys who are involved in representing people in the industry?
Jim Marty: [00:19:34] You know, the answer I would have to that is maybe I do know some ancillary businesses that did get to the TPP, the paycheck protection program loans. So I do know some inside companies that got that. And Kurson, do you work in the Hemp industry?
Karson Humiston: [00:19:52] You do? Yeah, we have. We have.
Karson Humiston: [00:19:53] We have several CBD and and, you know, clients because we took the position that Hemp companies would be eligible for these SBA programs. But a couple of our clients got turned down.
Karson Humiston: [00:20:06] Larry, I read it as like plumbers or folks like that have a variety of clients. But some of them may be Cannabis would be OK. That's that's. So we had a we had an attorney. We had a firm write an opinion for us. And that's you know, they said if you guys we're you know, we're plumbers and your.
Karson Humiston: [00:20:29] Servicing a handful of Cannabis companies, but also a handful of others, you would be OK. So I don't know.
Larry Mishkin: [00:20:36] I think that that makes sense. First, on the other side of our show courses, it's really prominent because it's first on the masthead Deadheads Jemini. And that's one of the connections we made back at that initial conference in Las Vegas a few years ago. We love to talk about the Grateful Dead. We love to talk about fish. But what we really like to talk about is music. And so we always like to ask our guests what they what music out there, you know, kind of inspires you and influences you and what music feels to right now.
Karson Humiston: [00:21:08] Oh, I don't know if it inspires me, but I was joking.
Karson Humiston: [00:21:11] I said that, you know, I.
Karson Humiston: [00:21:13] And and my run earlier today, I was jamming to Justin Bieber's new album, Changes. And that was good. I went to a pretty good concert earlier this year.
Karson Humiston: [00:21:23] The the artist name is Griffin. I think that that was pretty good. You know, most of the I exercise quite a bit the most time and listening to pretty like upbeat, fast paced music. But those are two that I was having listening to in the last week, that all that I'll that I'll share the B they come to be they love the new Justin Bieber album.
Jim Marty: [00:21:46] Our sons are 22 and 32. And they and they're also very much like Griffith that I say that. Right.
Karson Humiston: [00:21:54] And G R I think it's t r y and how you found me like it's g r y f f i n OK.
Karson Humiston: [00:22:03] And are you a he's like a deejay kind of in a bill.
Jim Marty: [00:22:06] Are you a Billy English. Is that her name. Green hair. I wish.
Karson Humiston: [00:22:12] Yeah. I mean is my favorite of all time. Yeah, sure. Love words.
Jim Marty: [00:22:17] You know, it's great that there's a lot of young new music coming out. Larry and I have pretty much nothing but disappointments the last few weeks. I just got word that the University of Colorado will not be hosting Devon Company in July. And the city of New Orleans has canceled Jazz Fest, which was postponed till September. Now, it's not going to happen at all.
Karson Humiston: [00:22:40] Yeah, I mean, I know I was talking to an investor just before I got on with you guys, just kind of talking about, you know, when we think the world will be back to normal and I mean, doesn't seem like normal, normal, normal until some point in twenty twenty.
Karson Humiston: [00:22:55] And I was figuring out how do we best adapt and really how do we best support our clients between now and then?
Larry Mishkin: [00:23:02] I think that's the right attitude to have.
Jim Marty: [00:23:04] Fortunate that so far Cannabis has been deemed an essential service in most states, so clients still has sales. So very fortunate to be in an industry that still has sales.
Larry Mishkin: [00:23:17] Absolutely. And one of the things we've talked about is not just sales, but all the stuff that some of these states are willing to go to in order to allow it. And I know I saw like a broken record when I say this, but it just amazes me every time I go. I was just at my dispensary the other day. They have curbside service. You know, you order on your computer before you go in to give you a time to pull up. Somebody comes running out to check your I.D. and your state patient's card to make sure that your urologist. You give them your money. They run back inside. A few minutes later, they come out and do your stuff. You go in the gym. So I don't take this the wrong way. But you're old enough, certainly. So they we've been in this industry long enough to know that, you know, the advice we've always given our clients over the years, of course, is the states and everyone have insisted on it. Everything has to be done indoors and everything has to be done with the cameras and everything has to be done. Still, nothing can take place anywhere outside. And all of a sudden we have a virus that's real concern that mirror what is enough of a social element that the governor is willing to go that far and let us do it.
Jim Marty: [00:24:28] I think that's about all I have for this one. Larry, you got anything else?
Larry Mishkin: [00:24:33] First and let me ask you this. I'm a college graduate. I'm looking for a job. How do I get a hold of X and let him know I'm interested?
Karson Humiston: [00:24:43] Yeah. Go to that, vangst.com, and click. Sign up and. I'll take three steps to fill out your profile and then I'm going to call you and we'll do an interview with you and then you'll be in and you'll be able to apply to jobs.
Larry Mishkin: [00:24:56] And if I'm an employer, does it also work that way, too?
Karson Humiston: [00:24:58] And if you're an employer, same thing you can actually does. If you have an open job view of the job description, what you can do is you go to the employer page on our website, upload your job description, and that'll result in someone, our customer success team calling you and then getting you set up with a profile so that you can learn how to use it and start matching with candidates. So you really just go to banks that time and we can get you set up whether you're a candidate or a client.
Jim Marty: [00:25:25] And that's Vangst with a V V, as in Victor V as in Victoria.
Jim Marty: [00:25:29] Thanks. That's excellent.
Larry Mishkin: [00:25:32] Well, this has been great person. Thank you so much for taking time to come on our show and speak with us. We're we're we're very pleased that, you know, your dad help us. So get this up and running. It really was kind of the brains behind the whole operation. Jim and I have the easy part because we get to sit around to do what we love to do anyway. And Fred makes a skill, but our show is always better when we have interresting just side. And, you know, certainly you fall into that category with everything you've accomplished in this industry so far. And good luck. And we hope you'll come back and join us again sometime.
Karson Humiston: [00:26:05] Yeah. Guys, thank you so much for everything. Man, stay safe and healthy in the coming weeks and looking for that, hopefully seeing everybody soon.
Jim Marty: [00:26:13] Excellent.
Jim Marty: [00:26:14] This is Jim Marty saying goodbye to cold and snowy Longmont, Colorado for the Deadhead Cannabis Show over snow blower by Jim talk to you soon
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