December 2019 Breakfast Program

Katy represents both plaintiffs and defendants in business disputes and real estate claims, including matters for cannabis industry litigants. For cannabis businesses, she handles mostly partnership disputes and breach of contract matters, including leases. She graduated from University of the Pacific cum laude where she played water polo on scholarship and then she received her law degree from University of San Francisco where she graduated magna cum laude. She has been named a Northern California Super Lawyer Rising Star for 2014 through 2019. In 2018 and 2019, she was named to Benchmark Litigation’s top 40 under 40 list.  She also the President of the InterNational Cannabis Bar Association.

Alex “accidentally” Co-founded and developed the brand and company Sublime Canna.  After his investment and role as CEO, he took the company from an idea, to a portfolio of industry leading brands.  He created, branded and deployed:  “Fuzzies”-one of the world’s best-selling pre-rolls as of Oct 2019, High-C and Sleep-the only products that took consecutive “1^st Place” and “2^nd Place” in a single Emerald Cup category, and Dosies-the world’s cannabis confection modeled after the world’s best-selling mint the “Tic Tac”®.

He also co-founded Surf For Life an international development non-profit that has provided clean water, education, shelter and other basic support services to underserved communities in 12 countries impacting several hundred thousand lives.

His passion for people, product, and profits has led him into many ventures but he currently takes most pride in being a dad.

Erin Gore is founder and CEO of Garden Society, a California-based, cannabis-focused benefit corporation serving women in search of new, more holistic ways to rejuvenate from the rigors of their daily lives. Garden Society offers high quality, low dose artisanal confections and sun-grown pre-rolls that connect biodynamic farming, sustainable ingredients and strain-specific cannabis in a variety of products.

Erin is an active member of the Northern California cannabis community, and frequently speaks on the topics of cannabis and entrepreneurship. She’s a fearless advocate for women-owned cannabis businesses, and equally dedicated to breaking the stigma and rewriting the script around the plant. With a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Erin is also fluent in the science-based talk of cannabis and production.

Ryan Hudson is co-founder and CEO of The Apothecarium, the cannabis dispensary he founded with his two first cousins and two family friends in 2011. Hudson manages operations and expansion for the company. He started The Apothecarium with the mission of providing a professional and welcoming environment for patients to obtain their cannabis comfortably. The dispensary has been hailed as one of the leading dispensaries in the nation. The San Francisco Chronicle called The Apothecarium an “international model.” Architectural Digest named the flagship Castro store the best designed dispensary in the country.

Hudson is a seasoned entrepreneur with an engineering and technical background. His previous startups were in the veterinary health, mobile apps, and computer diagnostic fields. Earlier in his career he served as a network engineer supporting a large medical device company and an investment bank.