Inside A Family's Quest To Be First Cannabis Microbusiness In MA

UXBRIDGE, MA — If it wasn't for the crop of marijuana plants growing in the next room, the bright green walls and the slight smell of cannabis in the air, you could mistake it for the family dinner table.

Seated around a table in their Uxbridge marijuana cultivation facility on a recent night, Kimberly, Fred and Joe Gibson — mother, father and son — discussed their nearly three-year journey to become the state's first cannabis microbusiness.

Gibby's Garden got the OK to start operations Jan. 3, and their unique license lets them engage in a range of marijuana operations, from cultivation to manufacturing products — an advantage because most businesses have to apply for separate licenses for those same activities.

"It's the state's nod to the little guy," Kimberly Gibson said.

But the process was "brutal." The family started from scratch in 2017 with just the idea and Joe Gibson's knowledge of growing marijuana. Kimberly Gibson's 25 years of experience building data centers helped, but there's no manual for starting a marijuana microbusiness. Everything from town approval to installing a lighting system had to be learned, tested and, in some cases, done all over again.

The family's history with marijuana dates back to the 1970s, when Fred and Kimberly Gibson smoked it as youngsters. It was before the War On Drugs in the 1980s and laws beefing up prison time for possession of small amounts of drugs.

Joe, 29, has long been a marijuana user and grower. Like most parents, Kimberly and Fred didn't support their son using the drug. But after Massachusetts decriminalized cannabis in 2008, Joe felt freer to explore cultivation, and he developed a talent for it.

"Joe's brother told me he grows the best," Fred Gibson said with a chuckle.

Joe quit his job at the Walpole Rolls-Royce plant in August 2017 to dive head-first into the marijuana industry. One of the first steps was walking into Uxbridge Town Hall to begin the process of getting a host-community agreement. Since then, town officials — including police and selectmen — have toured their facility.

From there, it was a simple matter of getting a license from the state, finding a landlord who would lease them space, designing heating and lighting systems, buying solar panels, sourcing compost, and much more. The family spent about $1 million over the last three years to get to this point. They took out short-term, high-interest loans — access to capital is a problem for marijuana businesses everywhere — and borrowed from friends and family. Fred and Kimberly kept working their full-time jobs.

"If you have a price in mind, double it and double it again," Fred Gibson said of the process. "If you have a time frame, double it and double it again."

But now they've turned a corner. They can now sell their product to retailers and producers around the state. They have two rooms full of marijuana plants in various stages of growth. Another room holds big plastic bags of harvested bud. They're at the point where they express genuine joy over things such as a homemade rainwater collection system used to irrigate the plants.

The focus now, Kimberly Gibson says, is to be like Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch circa 1984 — to be the first family of craft cannabis. They also want to mimic the "scarcity" marketing used by some brewers, such as Charlton's Tree House Brewing, which puts strict rules on how and where the beer sells. Joe Gibson sees a day when they'll put a batch of Gibby's Garden OG Kush up for sale, and it'll be gone by noon.

The microbusiness license restricts how much cannabis they can produce, which Joe says will help them focus on quality.

"We want to be the best product on the market, so we don't need to grow that massive amount," he said.

Unlike Joe and Fred, Kimberly Gibson is less enthusiastic about the retail side of the business. Her drive is medical marijuana. She envisions helping the state's large universities more fully research all the medical properties of the plant.

"And we're here to provide them with the excellent product to do that," she said.

On Tuesday night, the family was on a high because of a visit from a major western Massachusetts retailer. The family is now free to start selling Gibby's Garden product across the state, allowing them to recoup the time, money, and lost sleep from over the last few years. They just hired a full-time grower to help Joe, and they have eight part-timers who assist when needed.

As hard as it's been, they feel lucky. Fred Gibson recounted a recent visit from a major buyer who was "pumped" about the company's system of growing marijuana on double-decker shelves.

"I realized people want to do what we're doing," Fred Gibson said.

"We're so f---ing blessed," Joe Gibson said in response.

All photos by Neal McNamara/Patch