Sean Oganesyan: The Legend Grows 

I appear to catch him mid thought.

“So long as you get up each morning and you’ve got the grind, ambition and motivation, then the sky’s the restrict,” says Sean Oganesyan, unquestionably one of many hashish business’s most decided, disciplined and enthusiastic cultivators.

On the time of this interview, Oganesyan was vice chairman of cultivation at STIIIZY, the phenomenally profitable California hashish firm. We’re in his downtown LA workplace, the place he’s sitting at his desk, expertly rolling a joint of Black Truffle—a deeply stunning cultivar with purple flowers so darkish they’re virtually black. We’re contemporary from the intimate, behind-the-scenes tour of the corporate’s develop rooms Oganesyan had simply proven me and Hashish Now’s founder and writer Eugenio García, the place we have been aware about seeing Black Truffle and STIIIZY’s different widespread strains in numerous progress phases. What a deal with.

I met the well-known cultivator for the primary time earlier this yr on the opening celebration for STIIIZY’s thirtieth dispensary in Costa Mesa, CA. He was radiating positivity that night and as we speak’s no completely different. I knew of him by his stellar popularity as a grasp grower, in fact, however I wasn’t anticipating him to be so unaffected and, sure, actual. 

The weed he grows is second to none, and Oganesyan has collaborated with a few of the largest names within the business. He co-founded 22Red along with his childhood pal and System Of A Down rockstar (and our cowl topic) Shavo Odadjian. He’s constructed cultivation amenities—and grown triple-A product—for B-Actual, Cookies, Seed Junkies and lots of extra. “All through the years, I’ve been honored with pals who’ve blessed me with good genetics to domesticate for them or myself,” he says. 

In a second, smoke fills the air as Oganesyan lights the now-rolled joint. He passes it on to me and I take a few tokes, savoring the deliciously spicy dankness. I settle again into my chair as Oganesyan begins to inform his life story. And what a narrative it’s. From being raised within the former Soviet Union to becoming a member of the US Marines, from childhood gymnastics to rising a few of the greatest weed in California, one recurring subject connects all of them: his unwavering self-discipline.

Oganesyan says he’s identified from a younger age that success stems from routine and self-control. His dad enrolled him in gymnastics at three years outdated, and the data and training he gained in his early life helped pave the highway to success. Oganesyan’s mother, he shares, was a gifted engineer who held 68 patents within the Soviet Union, together with one for the primary automated washer within the communist nation. His father was the CEO of an Italian furnishings and leather-based warehouse in Latvia. “In Armenian communities, there’s a saying that interprets to, ‘Your mother is your purity in life. Your dad is the person inside you that’s able to struggle and survive and do what’s essential to guard your loved ones,’” he says. “My dad was the disciplinarian; my mother had the mind. Rising up on this setting helped me develop sure enterprise strategies…the grind, the hustle, the work.”

Strict guidelines guided Oganesyan’s lifestyle. “My dad educated me to be disciplined, and that’s what’s made me profitable,” he says emphatically. “When you may have a purpose, you should be disciplined to set your imaginative and prescient in the direction of your purpose, which implies you should be constant. And to be constant, you should be disciplined and dedicated.”

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, life as Oganesyan knew it modified in a single day. “I keep in mind standing in line at 3 am to purchase meals and provides for the household as an 11-year-old—all people needed to pull their weight,” he says, matter-of-factly concerning the unhappy,  exceptional reminiscence from his childhood.  “I noticed the true battle and knew we have been higher off than 80 p.c of the individuals round due to my dad’s job.” Clearly, these difficult occasions performed a pivotal function in shaping his future. “Whenever you see issues in life at a younger age, it strikes you to be a fighter, to by no means break, to be somebody that might stand up to a storm and arise and deal with not simply himself however people who depend on him, too.” 

A few of his household relocated to the US within the Nineteen Fifties to flee the continuing Armenian Genocide. Oganesyan, his dad and mom, his brother and his brother’s spouse and son, made the transfer in 1993. They first moved from Latvia to Armenia, then to Glendale, close to Los Angeles and moved right into a two-bedroom residence within the coronary heart of a thriving Armenian group. “The very first thing I seen after I got here to this nation was the palm timber,” he says. “I felt like I used to be in heaven.” 

The household settled in rapidly, and Oganesyan enrolled on the native Roosevelt Junior Excessive College. Cash was tight, so he picked up his first job promoting donuts on the faculty cafeteria. He says he started residing the American Dream and located that the probabilities have been infinite. Earlier than graduating from highschool as captain of the soccer crew, Oganesyan was named Defensive Participant of the Yr.

The boy was now a person; the following chapter of Oganesyan’s life would make the most of and refine his self-discipline.

“My dad and mom stored pushing me to go to school, however I needed to be taught extra about American tradition,” he says, so in 1998 he turned a US Marine, deciding on the East Coast for boot camp. “I needed to flee the Armenian group bubble and study America. And what higher place to go than to the East Coast the place it began?” he asks.

Oganesyan says he thrived within the army, succeeding in the whole lot thrown at him. After finishing the preliminary coaching, he was meritoriously promoted to Non-public First Class. His athleticism and self-discipline made him a pure for the Marines, and he climbed by means of the ranks. After 5 intense army years, Oganesyan returned to civilian life. 

“One of many largest issues for ex-military making an attempt to combine into civilian life once more is that there’s no objective for them,” Oganesyan says. “That’s the place quite a lot of the despair and the darkish ideas come from as you’re analyzing all these various things in your head. That’s what can drive you to insanity. However there was none of that battle for me; I simply mentioned, ‘Let’s get to work.’” 

On the time, his mother was managing an 80,000-square-foot clothes manufacturing facility, so he began working there, studying the attire commerce. This led him to launch a trend model (China Doll) along with his cousin. The model, he says, was extraordinarily profitable and it was solely then that Oganesyan was in a position to marry his spouse.

Pausing from his story, Oganesyan leans over his desk to go me the joint. I take one other hit, musing over how glad I’m that he discovered his strategy to hashish. A light-weight, cerebral buzz washes over me, and I hand it again, keen to listen to how Oganesyan would grow to be one in every of our nation’s best cultivators.

Oganesyan’s transfer into hashish is sort of a narrative. He says he consumed hashish a couple of occasions in highschool on snowboarding journeys and once more when he received out of the army, albeit sometimes. But it surely was his spouse’s cousin, who labored for B-Actual’s Dr. Greenthumb, who first opened his eyes to the large alternative of hashish as a enterprise. 

So, along with “a really pricey pal,” Oganesyan started working constructing the inspiration of his personal hashish cultivation empire.

Fortuitously, as a part of a army transition program to the civilian world, he spent three months learning masonry, plumbing and electrical work. These expertise proved invaluable, as he might construct the whole lot required to develop within the warehouse. “We received our permits; we put collectively an entire marketing strategy; we employed an lawyer who gave us all the rules round what we wanted to function. We went
into enterprise as Inexperienced Therapeutic,” he says.

The 2 pals opened a ten,000-square-foot warehouse “whereas all people was nonetheless rising in homes,” he says. Oganesyan started spending greater than ten hours a day within the develop room. “I discovered how the crops maneuver and develop,” he says. “I utilized my gymnastic self-discipline—what I ate throughout coaching for the very best endurance stage—to the plant’s feeding. Naturally, you need to feed them extra than simply as soon as a day; how about twice a day, thrice a day or 4 occasions a day, 5 occasions a day? That developed to steering the plant’s progress by understanding the roots’ motion and the vitality it takes for that plant to develop. It’s a calculation; it’s an equation. I don’t know the place it got here from; it simply made sense to me.”

150 lights illuminated the multi-grow-room facility. The inaugural harvest was profitable: The primary room harvested had 24 lights from which they pulled 86 kilos of the orgininal OG, the enduring pressure from Kenji and Josh D. You may think about what the opposite 126 lights produced. 

By 2010, Oganesyan and his accomplice had 1,000 lights working in California. “We have been absolutely licensed for each facility and adopted the rules for legally cultivating. We employed 170 employees on full medical health insurance and employee’s comp. We paid ourselves sufficient to care of our households and the whole lot else went again into the enterprise,” he says. 

In an all too acquainted story, their authorized develop was raided in 2011. “Once we have been raided, the whole lot was on paper, each tax doc instead,” he says. Like so many individuals in comparable conditions, Oganesyan was left to choose up the items after the bust and compelled to start out anew with all their distributors and the authorized dispensaries they have been contracted with. As soon as once more, Oganesyan’s self-discipline was on full show. “A real chief will get on his arms and knees, no matter it takes to get the work completed. My preliminary thought was, ‘How do I create yet one more enterprise to guard my individuals as a result of they have to deal with their households?’” 

One vendor instructed he come and work straight with them by offering his hashish cultivation experience to assist construct their enterprise, which gave him the concept to start out consulting. He suggested a number of hashish corporations and dispersed his individuals between them. Inside 18 months, Oganesyan was managing 3,000 lights throughout California. “I used to be in a position to put my head down at night time and never fear about someone coming knocking on my door and taking my spouse and I to jail,” he says. 

In 2019, Sean Oganesyan was approached by the founders of STIIIZY and the remainder, as they are saying, is plant historical past. “Our visions aligned,” he says. “They mentioned, ‘We don’t have a cultivation division and we would like you to construct it.’ All the things we mentioned made sense to me as a result of these guys are grinders. The founders are grinding each single day with each single one in every of their workers on the ground. We shared the identical self-discipline and mindset—the whole lot I come from. We have been a strong military; we have been a crew. We innovated, influenced and impressed one another day by day,” he says, referencing the three “I’s” in STIIIZY. “We labored collectively, acknowledged sure issues and attacked them in unity. We had one imaginative and prescient, one purpose.”

Spoken like a real Marine. 

This story was initially revealed in problem 49 of the print version of Hashish Now. Learn it now on the Hashish Now iTunes app.