Four20 Media Group is highlighting women who are making a positive difference in the cannabis business community. These leaders were nominated by their peers and then vetted with a panel of judges from the local community.
Sherry Smies-Evins is the owner and president of MC3 Botanicals, also the owner and creative at Smies Design. She got into the cannabis market in 2015 when she was helping a family member cope with chemo therapy treatment for cancer. She built MC3 Botanicals in 2019, along with two other women, and have been growing ever since.
What does receiving this award mean to you?
I was shocked. It was one of those little bright points in my life at this time where you know sometimes we don’t always see the long-term effects of what we’re doing, we’re so focused on sales bottom line, paying our employees and it was very pleasant to see that come through and go I guess I’m doing something good.
Why do you think you deserve this award?
The word deserve really bothered me. Its just very much an honor for all the hard work, but I can’t take credit for myself, I have a great staff. They are so focused on producing a great product. That’s always been a main focus of ours. We always said it would be quality over quantity. We weren’t going to be one of those big grows just pushing things out, we really wanted to have an organic great product. So I would pass this award to my staff as well because without them we wouldn’t be here.
What do you consider some of your greatest contributions to the cannabis industry?
I guess really promoting the plant as medical. Even though we sell adult-use, everybody we talk to: I love doing vendor days. I love talking to the public and not only sharing more education about the plant, but also hearing their stories about how it has helped them. I mean that hits me every time you know there was a son that drove four hours every weekend to pick up gummies for his mom that’s suffering from cancer and going through chemo right now, and the gummies are the only thing helping her and it’s stories like that that just really hit me and I love sharing them and I love trying to promote the product.
What advice would you give to a woman who aspires to be a leader in cannabis?
Don’t give up. It is a battle. It is a lot of hard work and you have to work hard, you do have to get dirty, you do have to just keep pushing through. And there’s times when you just go ‘what am I doing,’ but then, like I said, I go to these vendor days, I hear stories and I want to continue the battle.
Congratulation Sherry!