Stephen Montoya
Colt Power stands in what he calls his favorite room in the building, where the plants begin to bud. Power Biopharms is one of only a handful of companies that actually grow and extract its own CBD products.
A huge smile beams across the face of Power Biopharms founder and CEO Colt Power as he surveys several rows of budding hemp plants at his company’s facility in Euless.
Power, a Texas Native, and Notre Dame graduate has the demeanor of a modern-day Willy Wonka, who isn’t afraid to try new techniques to perfect what his company sells — locally grown and manufactured CBD products.
That’s right, Power’s company has joined a half-dozen or so in-state CBD manufacturers that follow a strict set of statewide guidelines to produce what he calls “nature’s medicine.”
“I was never a drug kid in high school,” Power says as a way to explain away any stereotypes. “I have always been academically minded and involved in sports. I didn’t want to jeopardize any of those things, so I stayed away from smoking pot and whatever when I was younger.”
Power’s path in academia led him to Notre Dame, where he was granted a partial scholarship to play lacrosse as a goalie. The irony is that it was his stint in college sports that led him to use CBDs as a pain reliever.
“I tried everything I could to manage the pain in my knees, but nothing seemed to help until I tried using a CBD cream,” Power says. “It was the only thing that took the swelling down and took away the pain.”
After several years of using CBDs to help with his knee pain, Power was struck with the idea of opening his own CBD manufacturing company.
“I wanted to open a business that helped people manage their pain,” he says. “I shadowed someone doing orthopedic surgery once and almost passed out, so I knew that wasn’t it. But when I heard that Texas was opening up [its] licensing to grow, extract and manufacture hemp, I was all in.”
Power says he went through all of the legal channels and was licensed by the state of Texas in November 2020 to grow hemp plants at his home; an endeavor that came with a huge learning curve.
“I began growing about 60 plants in my media room upstairs,” he says with a sly smile. “I moved all of our furniture out of this space, because there are no windows up there, and began growing and controlling the climate. Man, some of those plants were ugly.”
It was only after the hemp plants began to grow substantially, that Power says he knew it was time to find a dedicated space to continue his growing process.
“I used my background in real estate to try and find a place nearby that I could use to continue with this idea,” he says.
What Power found was a 5,000-square-foot building with multiple rooms and space to try new things. See, I told you he was Wonka-like. Since leasing this space, however, Power says this once part-time business, is now his main focus, with him only doing a bit of brokerage on the side.
“We have seven employees and every day I hear how much every one of them loves coming into work,” he says. “Plus, we are creating a product that helps people feel better, whether it be for recreational reasons or medical reasons.”
Stephen Montoya
Power Biopharms CEO and Founder Colt Power surveys a batch of hemp plants that are almost ready to harvest at his company headquarters in Euless.
Currently, Power is using a drip system that maintains roughly 1,000 hemp plants grown from a single strain, in various stages of flowering or growing on a daily basis. There are a half-dozen rooms in this facility dedicated to this process, whether it’s a room for growing, drying out the plants, or a climate-controlled area, Power has everything on a set schedule.
“I might be full-time now, but we are still on the build as it pertains to revenue,” he says. “When you’re running a farm, you can only move at the speed of plants.”
But growing plants is just one of the many facets Power Biopharms is in charge of. Then there is the business of extracting the 0.3% of THC, the chemical in a hemp plant that aids with a person’s pain when taken. Power has a machine that does just that. After the product is loaded into this extraction machine a green jelly-like paste is secreted and collected into a container and then placed into a cooling unit. From there, Power and members of his team either use this concentrate to make CBD edibles, bath bombs, or other products. A process, he says, that is monitored every month by the state of Texas through the department of agriculture.
According to royalcbd.com, Texas has one of the strictest marijuana laws in the United States. Getting caught with less than two ounces of illegally grown cannabis can result in a $2,000 fine and up to 180 days in prison. Possession of higher amounts can get you into prison for up to two years and make your bank account $10,000 lighter.
The catch with the Texas law is that the police use field tests that aren’t designed to distinguish between marijuana-derived CBD oil and hemp-derived CBD law. This means that you can still get detained for possession while your products undergo further tests in a laboratory.
Therefore, if you want to avoid trouble with the law, you should always buy CBD oil that comes with a Certificate of Analysis from an independent laboratory. It’s the only way to prove to the police that your oil actually contains less than 0.3% of THC.
This rule also goes for businesses that have a license to grow and sell CBD products in Texas.
“You have to tell them how you are growing a plant, and where you are growing said plant,” Power says. “They have a person come in that has a license and they take the sample. That’s anytime we are about to harvest. And there’s a cost to all of this, it’s not free.”
According to Power, he and his staff spent almost all of 2021 perfecting the processes of meeting state requirements and creating quality products that he felt would best represent his business.
Power says this last summer was the Biopharm’s best boost yet, having sold items to several local stores. “It’s been a very steady month-over-month increase on revenue since this past summer, so we are optimistic about our future,” Power says.
As for the stigma surrounding this once-taboo medicine, Power says people are getting educated about CBD’s healing qualities and are always looking for a natural remedy outside of the old over-the-counter regimen.
“We can ship our products to all 50 states,” Power says. “We even have a Texas-friendly edible that doesn’t melt in the heat. So, I see us moving up in the years to come.”
For more information on Power Biopharms click here.