What You’ll Learn
- The Business Services team shares their recent experiences at the WACA Spring Meeting and NECANN’s Illinois Cannabis Convention.
Salal Credit Union works to represent and advocate for all our cannabis business members, and those efforts include regular attendance at industry conferences and conventions. Recently, members of the Salal Business Services team attended the 2024 Bowl in One Golf Tournament and Spring Meeting of the Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA), as well as the New England Cannabis Convention (NECANN) in Illinois. At both events we appreciated the opportunity to listen to our members and to learn from industry experts.
WACA’s Spring Meeting
The Washington CannaBusiness Association provides licensed and regulated cannabis and hemp businesses in Washington state with general support and representation before regulatory agencies and the legislature. It’s one of the oldest cannabis and hemp trade associations in the country. Four Business Services team members, Christoffer McCollom (Business Banking Sales Manager), Christa Kemp (Treasury Management Sales Officer), David Krueger (Associate Business Officer), and Jennifer Griffith (Senior Due Diligence Specialist), attended the WACA conference and enjoyed a weekend of learning, golfing, and connecting with our business members.
WACA was Christoffer’s first event since joining Salal. It was also his first cannabis industry meetup. “First and foremost, I wanted to have an opportunity to connect with Salal members,” he said. “I was looking to have robust conversations about how we are performing in the marketplace, including the areas where we excel and any areas in which we can continue to improve.”
Christa, who is celebrating five years with Salal, said she enjoyed introducing Christoffer to our members. “We were also able to make meaningful connections with new folks, while seeing our members who have been with us since the beginning of banking the cannabis industry in June 2014. It was exciting to celebrate our 10-year anniversary with people who have been with us since the program started.”
Mutual learning was a top goal. “Bringing people together is one of the many ways we can assist our members,” Christoffer said. “If we stay up to speed on where they are as an industry, we can better position ourselves as trusted advisors.”
Christa especially appreciated the participation of state regulators. “We had four representatives of the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) join the interactive roundtable discussions, where they got to hear the pain points of businesses in the industry. I saw all of them taking notes and genuinely engaging with folks and wanting to find out how they could help.”
Other topics at WACA included an update on federal rescheduling efforts and the SAFE Banking Act, staff unionization, insurance, ergonomics in agriculture, and updates on HB 1453, the Medical Cannabis Tax Exemption. “The biggest surprise that I encountered at WACA was the sheer number of challenges faced by those brave enough to enter the cannabis industry,” Christoffer noted. “They include issues ranging from the inability to vertically integrate, margin compression, challenges faced by unionization, and ongoing and unresolved issues with state regulators. This industry is not for the faint of heart.”
Christoffer emphasizes that Salal is active and engaged across the cannabis industry, providing more than just banking products and services. “This is reflected in the level of commitment provided from our CEO Russ Rosendal on down,” he said.
The entire Business Services team believes in both the power and the potential of collaboration. “Business owners enjoy engaging with a brand and feel valued when that brand provides opportunities to connect,” Christoffer said. “At Salal Credit Union, we pride ourselves on open and honest communication, regardless of the topic or situation.”
Christa considers WACA and other conferences to be ideal venues for making these connections. “I have attended for the last four years and love seeing how people come together and troubleshoot with each other, for each other,” she said. “It is important to feel supported by the financial institution that you work with, because when you have trusted resources in your corner, you thrive.”
We look forward to continuing to support WACA and our members through all the changes that the cannabis industry will see in the future. “We excel in the areas of collaboration, networking, and problem solving,” Christoffer said. “We are innovative, resilient, and focus not on quick wins, but instead on long-term successes that are beneficial to all parties involved.”
NECANN’s Illinois Cannabis Convention
Just a few days earlier, in Chicago, Business Officers Sylvia See and A.T. Wolff and our Treasury Officer Christa Kemp attended NECANN’s 4th Annual Illinois Cannabis Convention, billed as the largest gathering of the cannabis industry in the state.
NECANN has been organizing cannabis industry conventions since 2014 with the goal of bringing the local cannabis community together so it can grow and prosper through education, collaboration, and communication. And according to our team members who were at the convention, NECANN delivered on those goals.
The Salal team’s top priorities were to spend time with existing members and meet new businesses who can benefit from the banking services we offer. “Our existing members are enthusiastic and want to refer to us,” Sylvia reported.
Salal seeks to do likewise, serving as a resource for our members in Illinois. “I wanted to find out where most businesses were located,” Christa said, “as well as meet businesses that could potentially be an asset to our existing members.”
We listened—and learned a lot about the cannabis market in Illinois. “The Illinois market is very different from the West Coast market,” A.T. said. “Cannabis became legal in Illinois right before the pandemic, and so their market has not matured as quickly as other markets have in the past.”
But that has been changing. “The Illinois market was flooded with Multi-State Operators (MSOs) who pushed out many of the smaller mom-and-pop cannabis businesses,” A.T. noted. “Illinois now seems to have a focus on attracting more of the smaller family-run businesses and also social equity license holders.”
Several sessions at NECANN focused on social equity and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), while others focused on HR, finance, and marketing—all topped off by a Keynote speech by actor and cannabis business owner Jim Belushi. Our team was thrilled to meet Jim and advocate alongside him for the cannabis industry.
One of A.T.’s other goals at the NECANN event was to meet with Cannabis Equity Illinois, which works with those who have historically been incarcerated for cannabis offenses and/or are part of communities that face discrimination (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+), to talk about Salal’s Social Equity program in development and find ways to partner with them. “We are working on setting up a discussion or teach-back,” A.T. said, “where I co-teach with a person from Cannabis Equity Illinois specifically for transgender folks who work for or own cannabis businesses.”
Salal strives to empower these historically underserved businesses in other ways, as well. “We are always looking for ways to help our members,” Christa said, “whether it is through introducing them to a payroll company, sending a bookkeeper their way who can help cannabis clients, or introducing them to a local chamber or organization that can help elevate them.”
Later this year, Salal plans to attend the 13th Annual MJBizCon in Las Vegas, and in our next quarterly newsletter, we’ll be sharing our plans and goals for that event. It’s been great meeting with our members this year, and we look forward to seeing you again in December!
We’re Here to Help
Questions? Comments? Requests? Feel free to reach out to your Salal Business Services team at 206.298.9398 or BusinessServices@SalalCU.org.