For decades, Holland Green Science founder and CEO Michael Urosev has traveled the world establishing and managing massive global supply chains in the automotive and scientific equipment industries. Along the way, he’s learned a thing or two about how to optimize the flow of goods and the best ways to create streamlined and cost-effective processes — not to mention, picking up a few languages.

In this new position, Michael finally unites his lifelong love, passion, and respect for the cannabis plant with his extensive knowledge of the global supply chain. He, along with his co-founders and executive team, are building a cannabis extraction technology company with certification, safety, and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) at its heart.

Get to know Michael with five questions that’ll take you through his career, experiences, and his drive to unite cannabis culture with business.

Q: Why did you start Holland Green Science?

Michael Urosev (MU): Our company is the future for botanical extraction, focused on hemp, cannabis, and the psychedelic markets. We want to bring in what the market doesn’t realize it needs yet: certifications, safety measures, quality equipment, and integrated systems. We’re going to get the market ready for the eventual GMP landscape we’ll all be playing in soon.

We’re drawing on a lot of experience from professionals within the scientific equipment and instrument business – that’s where myself and my co-founding partners come from. We want to bring innovation and focus to this market with equipment that meets our clients’ primary needs. We’re manufacturing equipment with the end user in mind.

Q: What interests you the most about the cannabis extraction space?

MU: I look at the market now like a teenager, maybe even a pre-teen. They have a lot left to experience and learn. They take a lot of risks without understanding the consequences. We don’t want to take away from the fun and the excitement and openness of this time, but we also plan to be the adults in the room to help shepherd this market to where it needs to be.

That includes a focus on regulatory compliance and professionalism at all levels of business. Because my background is in supply chain management, we have inventory and can manage the current challenges. Our competitors cannot. We can see in the market that most cannot provide reasonable lead times for customers on equipment delivered, if they even give them one at all.

Aftermarket service is also a void we want to fill. Once the sale is done, there is usually no follow up, and customers have a hard time contacting the manufacturer or supplier. Our commitment is, if needed, we’ll have an on-site technician there within 24 to 48 hours to help resolve the issue. And, of course, we’ll always offer immediate support via phone or video conference.

Q: What is your primary skillset, and how does that influence your role on the Holland Green Science leadership team?

MU: When I was in the supply chain industry, I managed global sourcing. We handled very big, complex, end-to-end supply chains – we’re talking about spends in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That gave me an understanding of the scope and the level of complexity of these supply chains, and what we’ve seen in the cannabis space over the last five years is high level leadership drawn from the supply chain profession. Supply chain management is the center focus for running businesses.

With that, I’ve always been skeptical of trends and fads; I always try to look at things practically. Supply chains are very complex and nuanced, so you can’t just take these big philosophies and lay them on.

I always wanted to customize the supply chain for my business with the best partners and suppliers, so we did that at Holland Green Science. We didn’t follow all the established rules. We charted our own way to meet the needs of the times we’re in. The focus is on our products and what we bring to the table, such as exceptional innovation for freeze drying tech. We have freeze driers for the smaller craft cannabis producers and the larger growers. In solventless tech, we’re launching some innovative and exciting equipment in 2022.

Q: Who do you see as Holland Green Science’ typical clients?

MU: Our typical customer could be anybody from the hobbyist, to the small scale craft producer, to the MSO [multi-state operator] or pharmaceutical company. We’re here to take care of the entire market, not just specific segments.

What we’ve done is created a product range appropriate for all of those groups. Some of our products include our rotary evaporator, and we’ve got everything from a 2 liter for hobbyist use, to a 5 liter, a 20 liter and now we’re launching a 50 and 100-liter model as well. We make sure we have the scale of equipment our end-users are going to need.

There’s a lot of upselling in the market and people buying systems that are not really aligned with what the regulatory requirements are going to be, or what they want to achieve. Our goal is that our customers have outstanding, world-class level service and someone to help them tailor their equipment needs. We try to give them something as turnkey as possible that’s as easy for them to use, along with all the SOPs required.

For someone just looking to optimize an existing system for higher production yields and higher quality end product, we’d use a more targeted approach depending on what they’re making. Are they manufacturing distillate? Solventless bubble hash? Rosin? Are they isolating THC? Do they want to target some other compound? We’re here to be that expert supplier, that partner supplier in a consultative role.

Q: How does — and should — the culture of cannabis influence the legal industry’s evolution?

MU: One thing that is very important to me is that Holland Green Science is not just looking to build a brand identity, but we want to build a culture within our team that we see as a counterweight to problems not just in our market, but overall.

If you look at the labor issues, people can’t retain workers. Well, there’s a reason for that. Too many companies are solely focused on driving profit regardless of the consequences to the community and the workforce. We want to build something special here. Salary is part of it; work/life balance is a part of it; philanthropic contributions are part of it.

We want to make sure we’re contributing as much as we’re gaining. We want our employees to be engaged, manage their work/life balance, grow as professionals, family members, parents, and so on. We want to build something very special here.

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