Commercial cannabis cultivation has never been more competitive—or more complex. Operators are managing tighter margins, more demanding compliance environments, and rising expectations from consumers who can tell the difference between a crop that was coaxed to its potential and one that was simply grown. In that environment, equipment alone isn’t enough. Commercial growers increasingly need technical partners who understand how every component of a cultivation facility works together.
That’s a reality GrowGeneration has been building toward for years. As a specialty distributor serving controlled environment agriculture (CEA), commercial cultivation and professional growing, GrowGeneration has invested not only in products and supply chains—but also in experienced cultivation professionals.
The company’s commercial cultivation technical team is a bench of industry veterans who collectively span over a century of hands-on cultivation experience. They are former facility founders, licensed cultivators, lighting consultants and extraction specialists who now work directly with GrowGeneration’s commercial accounts to solve real problems in real grow rooms. They don’t just sell inputs—they troubleshoot, optimize and build long-term systems alongside the operators they serve.
“We’re not just supplying equipment—we’re aligning infrastructure, inputs and environment into a single operating system,” says Michael Salaman, GrowGeneration’s co-founder and president. “That’s what allows growers to scale without introducing new risk.”
More Than a Distributor: The Case for Technical Partnership
The cannabis industry has matured rapidly and so have the stakes. What worked for a 5,000-square-foot craft operation often breaks down at 50,000 square feet. Nutrient programs that ran smoothly in one facility can underperform in another due to differences in water chemistry, substrate, lighting spectrum or HVAC design. Crop steering strategies that maximize yields in one production model can create stress in another.
This is where GrowGeneration’s approach stands apart. Rather than leaving operators to figure it out on their own after a purchase, the company has built a technical cultivation team that works alongside commercial growers through assessments, system conversions, and ongoing optimization. The goal is the same one any serious cultivator shares: consistent, repeatable output at scale.
Each specialist on the team brings a distinct area of deep expertise—from enterprise facility engineering to solventless extraction, from crop steering and climate control to lean CEA design and ROI modeling. Together, they cover the full operational lifecycle of a commercial grow.
Meet the Team
Each member of GrowGeneration’s commercial cultivation team brings a different area of expertise, giving operators access to specialists across every stage of cultivation.
Jason Holland | SVP of Technical Sales
Jason Holland serves as Senior Vice President of Technical Sales at GrowGeneration, where he leads technical sales strategy, product development, and commercial cultivation support across North America and international markets. With more than 25 years of experience in commercial agriculture and cannabis cultivation, Holland has helped design, optimize and troubleshoot cultivation programs for some of the industry’s largest operators.
His expertise includes plant nutrition, fertigation, crop steering, irrigation system design, environmental optimization, substrate management, and commercial production. Holland works closely with cultivation teams to improve crop performance, increase yields, enhance quality, and maximize profitability through data-driven cultivation strategies.
Holland is passionate about educating growers and developing innovative solutions that help customers succeed, from startup facilities to large multi-state and international operations.
David Todd | VP of Enterprise & Commercial Solutions
A cultivation systems specialist with a formal engineering background and extensive experience in licensed cannabis production since 2017, David Todd leads GrowGeneration’s technical operations, product integration, and cultivation strategy for enterprise clients, multi-state operators and national teams. He guides operations through system assessments, facility conversions and long-term optimization—and plays a central role in testing and refining GrowGeneration’s private-label brands. He is also the founder of Terra Australis, a licensed cultivation and consulting firm in Oregon.
Jacob Hickey | National Director of Commercial Cultivation Solutions
With over eight years in cultivation operations, Jacob Hickey supports large-scale operators with facility design, CAPEX planning, system optimization, and production strategy. He is a co-founder of Primo Danks / Seven Point Supply, previously led sales and marketing at Specgrade LED, and founded MI-Gas Consulting and a global cultivation education platform. His work is rooted in lean CEA design, SOP development, and ROI-driven growth.
Graeme Bluett | Director of Commercial Cultivation – West
A Controlled Environment Agriculture specialist with 16 years of full-time, hands-on experience in commercial cannabis production, Graeme Bluett brings deep expertise in IPM, nutritional strategy, climate and irrigation steering, crop health management, and grow room design. His strength is translating technical concepts into simple, scalable SOPs that improve consistency and output. As a Technical Advisor, he works closely with cultivation teams to turn complex cultivation challenges into practical, executable solutions.
Brandon Collins | Commercial Cultivation Technical Advisor
A cultivation consultant with over 14 years of hands-on experience, Brandon Collins has supported commercial operators since 2015 with a focus on environmental control, nutrition, and lighting optimization. His background includes custom LED design, lighting spectrum collaboration, and over $8M in combined equipment and nutrient sales. Collings currently works directly with cultivation teams to diagnose issues and implement practical, ROI-driven improvements across GrowGeneration’s private-label portfolio.
John deBettencourt | Commercial Cultivation & Solventless Extraction Technical Advisor
A cultivation and solventless extraction consultant with over 13 years of industry experience, John deBettencourt has been cultivating since 2012 and producing solventless concentrates since 2014. He owns and operates a licensed cannabis company in Maine, overseeing cultivation, production and compliance. Through his consulting work with DRIP Hydro and GrowGeneration, he specializes in facility stabilization, SOP development, and building long-term consistency into extraction and cultivation operations alike.
Gary Hesedahl | Commercial Cultivation Technical Advisor – PNW
With nearly 20 years of experience supporting commercial cultivators, Gary Hesedahl brings a data-driven, systems-focused approach to cultivation consulting and technical sales. Backed by a background in biological sciences from the University of Oregon, he works closely with growers to diagnose production challenges, optimize cultivation practices, and implement solutions that improve crop performance and operational consistency.
Hesedahl’s expertise spans cultivation troubleshooting, nutrient and irrigation strategies, crop health, and production optimization. His analytical approach and deep understanding of plant science enable him to help growers make informed, measurable improvements across a wide range of cultivation environments. He also supports product evaluation and technical validation to ensure GrowGeneration’s solutions deliver reliable, real-world performance.
Danny Fox | Commercial Cultivation Technical Facility Advisor
With more than 14 years of commercial cultivation experience, Danny Fox brings a systems-focused approach to facility design, technical sales, and cultivation optimization. Combining a degree in Operations and Supply Chain Management from California State University, Chico, with hands-on construction experience and more than a decade in hydroponic sales and technical advising, he works with cultivators to develop efficient, scalable production systems that improve operational performance and crop consistency.
Danny’s expertise spans facility planning, environmental control strategies, cultivation system design, and production optimization across indoor, greenhouse, and outdoor cultivation. His experience managing cultivation and post-harvest operations provides a practical understanding of the complete production lifecycle, enabling him to help growers troubleshoot challenges, optimize workflows, and implement data-driven solutions that support long-term operational success. He also supports product evaluation and technical validation to ensure GrowGeneration’s solutions perform reliably across diverse cultivation environments.
How the Team Operates
GrowGeneration’s commercial cultivation team doesn’t work from a call center. These specialists are embedded with operators—on-site and in the field—running assessments, walking facilities and building optimization plans alongside the growers they serve. The entry point is typically a comprehensive cultivation consultation, which evaluates everything from nutrient program efficiency and substrate performance to irrigation scheduling, climate strategy, environmental controls, and lighting output.
From there, the team works with operators to prioritize changes, model their ROI impact, and execute them in a sequenced, low-disruption way. Whether that’s a full system conversion for a multi-state operator or a targeted intervention to stabilize a problematic room, the approach is always built around what the operation actually needs—not a generic playbook.
This model is especially valuable for multi-state operators, where standardization across facilities is both a competitive advantage and an operational challenge. The GrowGeneration technical team has deep experience building SOPs and cultivation frameworks that can travel across facilities and climate zones without losing performance.
“The goal isn’t to get a client to use more product,” Salaman says. “It’s to get them to use the right product, in the right way, at the right time—and then build that into a system they can run consistently across their entire operation.”
Private-Label Brands. Professional Results.
A key part of the technical team’s work is supporting GrowGeneration’s portfolio of private-label cultivation brands, including Char Coir, ION, Drip Hydro, Dialed In, PowerSi, The Harvest Company, and more. These aren’t off-the-shelf products with a GrowGeneration label applied. They are inputs that the technical team has helped test, refine and validate in commercial environments.
Members like David Todd, Jason Holland and Brandon Collins are actively involved in product development—running trials, reviewing formulations and stress-testing performance standards before products reach commercial accounts. That gives GrowGeneration’s commercial clients something rare in the distribution space: a direct line between the people supplying their inputs and the people who’ve personally grown with them.
One Team. The Full Picture.
Commercial cannabis cultivation is a systems problem. A nutrient program is only as effective as the irrigation strategy delivering it. A lighting investment only pays off if the environment supports it. A well-designed facility only performs to its potential if the cultivation team has the SOPs and training to run it.
GrowGeneration’s technical cultivation team understands this. With specializations spanning enterprise facility design, crop steering, environmental control, IPM, solventless extraction, fertigation strategy, and lean CEA methodology, they’re equipped to support the full operational picture—from initial facility planning through ongoing grow-room optimization.
For commercial operators looking to improve consistency, reduce input waste, scale into new markets, or simply troubleshoot a problem they haven’t been able to crack, the path forward starts with a conversation.
To get started, email their team at [email protected] or sign up for a GrowGen Pro Account today.