“People want to know where your food comes from. Why shouldn't people know where your building materials come from?” —Gregory Wilson
Many of the building materials we use in our homes and workplaces can pose serious health risks. From toxic chemicals like formaldehyde to hazardous plastics, these materials can negatively impact indoor air quality and overall well-being. Therefore, it's time to rethink the foundations of construction and seek out sustainable, plant-based alternatives that prioritize human health.
Gregory Wilson is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of HempWood®, a company revolutionizing the building industry with its eco-friendly, carbon-negative flooring solutions. With over 28 years of experience in the field, Wilson is on a mission to provide healthier, more sustainable materials for residential and commercial spaces.
In this episode, Wilson discusses his entrepreneurial journey, the environmental and health benefits of Hempwood, the challenges of competing with cheaper but less sustainable options, and his plans for global expansion.
Meet Gregory:
Gregory Wilson is the founder of HempWood®, a company that produces sustainable building materials made from hemp fiber and soy protein. He has a background in business strategy, financial modeling, and product development, with experience in setting up operations in the USA and China. Gregory is also involved in other ventures such as SmartOAK Pty Ltd and QPC Partners, focusing on innovative and eco-friendly solutions in the real estate and manufacturing industries. He holds an MBA from Frostburg State University and has completed executive education at Harvard Business School.
Connect with NextGen Purpose:
Episode Highlights:
01:47 Loving the Outdoors
05:40 The Only Carbon-Negative Flooring Company
14:00 Overcoming Challenges in Sales
18:49 Do Not Be a Minority Owner in Your Own Company
23:59 Expanding Global Reach
27:43 What People Care About Most
31:06 It's Not Easy to Do What's Right
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justine Reichman (00:17):
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. I'm your host,Justine Reichman. With me today
is Greg Wilson. He is theFounder of HempWood. Welcome,
Greg.
Gregory Wilson (00:26):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Justine Reichman (00:27):
I'm so pleased to have you here. I've heard so
much about what you're doing,and I'm excited to share it with
our community. Just now, youjust told me that you were
serious entrepreneurs, your 81.So from the get go, I'm curious.
As a serial entrepreneur, do youjust think it's in your DNA?
Gregory Wilson (00:47):
Well, I'm not good at working for people. I
gotta figure something out.
Justine Reichman (00:53):
Have they all been in this space?
Gregory Wilson (00:56):
Not all, but the most successful ones have been.
I started in college working inbuilding materials, studying
engineering and Chinese, so Iwent over to China. And when I
was studying there, I did aninternship in a bamboo flooring
mill, and that turned intocoming back and graduating,
(01:16):
selling my car, buying a planeticket and starting a company
that went public.
Justine Reichman (01:21):
Wow, congratulations. That's a big
deal. There's so much to go onthere for the people that are
listening and watching, and wantto learn more about how to
become a successfulentrepreneur, especially when
you started off while you're incollege. But let's go back a
little bit. Let's tell everybodya little bit about your
background, and let's just kickit off a little bit with how you
(01:44):
got into this specific industrytoday.
Gregory Wilson (01:48):
Well, I've always been the outdoorsy
person. I was always the kidthat was in the creek catching
crawfish and just wanting to beoutside hiking, biking, camping
and things. And then when I wentto college, I did very well in
math. I did not do well in thereading and writing part, and so
(02:10):
they asked if I spoke a secondlanguage. The answer was NO so I
took that as a challenge tolearn Chinese, because I figured
an engineer who speaks Chinesecan write his own ticket. So
that's how I got started gettinginto building materials coming
from a building family, and thengoing to China while I was in
(02:30):
college, and trying to solve aproblem of how to make bamboo
flooring harder so you couldactually use it for flooring
without having dings and dentsin it.
Justine Reichman (02:44):
I know that you do a lot in building
materials, and I know from thelimited conversation that we had
before this that a lot of itgoes back to being sustainable,
and equally, some of it isaround agriculture. I'd love to
know how that fits into whatyou're doing, and why did you
focus on that?
Gregory Wilson (03:04):
Well, so loving the outdoors means that I wanted
to do something that was more inthe natural building material
space, because I did aninternship also in college
working as a line engineer orassistant line engineer for
vinyl siding. And I thought thatthat was actually just
disgusting seeing all of thedifferent petroleum and
different stuff that they putinto your home. I didn't think
(03:29):
that was right, so I wanted towork on something that would
actually be a solution. So Istarted working with the bamboo,
and I actually got really sickfrom dealing with the
formaldehyde that's used in woodflooring and bamboo flooring.
Been hospitalized a bunch oftimes with my lungs because that
led me to doing this one on myown terms, and using soy instead
(03:51):
of formaldehyde as the bondingagent to hold together the
hempwood. So learning what Ilearned with the bamboo that was
relatively successful, and thenfixing the inherent problems in
it of something that actuallygrows faster and is better for
the environment, hemp ratherthan bamboo, and then using soy
(04:13):
instead of formaldehyde, becauseI didn't want to have my
coworkers getting sick like Idid. I still have those
respiratory problems. I'm stillon a payment plan for my last
lung treatment in 2021. And sowhen hemp became legal in the
United States with the 2014 farmbill, I knew the process that we
(04:33):
had developed, which is actuallybased off of the Fibonacci
Sequence.
Justine Reichman (04:38):
For those that are not familiar with the
Fibonacci Sequence, can you justbreak that down for us.
Gregory Wilson (04:45):
The Fibonacci Sequence is nature's algorithm.
So it's the second most commonnumber in nature. It's how every
plant grows, every blade ofgrass, every leaf on a tree,
because it's the most efficientuse of space. So behind Pi,
which is a circle is Phi, whichis the most efficient use of
(05:06):
space. And so the FibonacciSequence is the carbon
sequestration ratio of plants.161% of carbon is required to
grow one unit of cellulose, aswell as the compression ratio
for making all of the differentproducts that I've invented,
like the strand woven bamboo,eucalyptus, smart oak. And now,
(05:26):
hempwood.
Justine Reichman (05:27):
Wow. So by making these products that are
all plant based, what is theimpact that that's having on the
environment? Do you have anystatistics you could share?
Gregory Wilson (05:41):
You can talk about the environment outdoors
where we're the only true carbonnegative blowing material in the
world, and that's because we useour waste as our energy source
for the mill. So our bio burneruses our waste hemp to create
our thermal energy, and then wehave hydro and solar electric to
power of the mill. To thefarming practices where you're
(06:03):
not allowed to use fertilizers,pesticides or herbicides that
you typically use in agriculturelike row crops like corn, beans
and wheat, because actually, thegovernment hasn't regulated it
to allow any of the approvedproducts on it, so you
technically have to grow itorganically because you're not
(06:24):
allowed to spray it withanything. So the farming
practices are regenerative, justin their inherent nature of
being a net benefit for the soiland not spraying anything on it
using a plant based adhesive toreplace petroleum with the soy
is up cycling soy. That afterthey squeeze out the oil for
making biodiesel, we use theflour as our protein soy for our
(06:48):
adhesive to inside of the mill,not having any of our employees
getting sick from being arounddirty chemicals, or the
installers putting it into yourhome, as well as the people that
are actually living in that homenot having any VOC, Volatile
Organic Compounds, that leachout into people's homes whenever
(07:08):
you have dirty chemicals inthere. That's literally the
healthiest, most sustainableflooring in the world.
Justine Reichman (07:15):
Wow, so you've been doing this flooring now for
how long?
Gregory Wilson (07:19):
My journey to where I am now began in 1996. So
you're talking 28 years when Istarted laying flooring in our
family business, because myfamily are builders. And so
before I could drive a car, Iwas helping lug boxes of wood
flooring into houses for thefamily business, and then
(07:41):
learning how to install them. Tostudying building material
engineering in college startingin 2000, I actually went to an
academy of manufacturing, soengineering High School on the
STEM schools where I studiedliterally what I'm doing now.
And then went to college and didthe same thing, to starting my
first business in 2003 which isnow 21 years ago or so, working
(08:04):
with this strand woven bamboo tothen going to business school. I
ended up going to Harvard andjumped out and started my own
business. Because when I signedover the intellectual property
from the first one, they agreedto pay me to go to school
anywhere I could get into in theworld. So 2011, I finished
there, and then inventedhempwood in 2014. Filed the
(08:28):
patents in 2016. Built the firstmill in 2018. Built the second
mill in 2021. And now, we'rebuilding a third one.
Justine Reichman (08:39):
How much of the landscape of the country do
you have that has access tothis?
Gregory Wilson (08:43):
So all of our raw materials come from less
than 100 miles from ourfacility. Actually, we have over
80% of them that are grown righthere in Callaway County in
Murray, Kentucky. All of our soywhich comes from the processing
mills, they're within about 200miles of us. And then some of
(09:04):
our other components come fromWest Virginia, which is our
neighboring state as well. Soall of our raw materials come
from within a short distancebecause that helps with your
carbon calculation. And then weship our product all over the
United States straight to thejob site. So instead of having a
middleman that you have to sellit to a retail store that then
sells it to somebody, we justfind somebody who's really
(09:25):
interested in healthy,sustainable materials typically
for residential, somebody who'sin the healthcare field that
knows about all the dirty shitthat they're putting into your
out and say, I don't want tohave that. Or commercially, we
sell all over the US, and we'refinding our best commercial
customers, our universities andschools, because having improved
(09:49):
indoor air quality by not havingany VOCs leads to higher
cognitive ability and highertest scores.
Justine Reichman (09:56):
Amazing. So what percentage of the country
do you have at the moment thathas access or that is leveraging
this? And how large is that piethat you still want to reach out
to?
Gregory Wilson (10:06):
We have sold to all 48 states of the lower
states, as well as Hawaii. Wealso sell into Canada, Europe,
Australia, Japan. So it'sgetting out there. This is
technically our 6th year ofmanufacturing product. We've
done about 1.4 million squarefeet that's sold out there.
(10:27):
Probably 500 square feet isabout the average job that you
do. And so that means you've gota couple of thousands installs
that have gone not only in theUnited States, but all over the
place.
Justine Reichman (10:38):
Do you have any additional information that
you know besides from yourselfand the impact that you were
having from all the stuff thatwas on all the other materials?
So have there been any studiesdone, or anything further that
you could share about the impactof being able to have better for
you resources as you build out,whether it's homes, whether it's
(11:03):
residential or commercial?
Gregory Wilson (11:06):
We have our LCA, Life Cycle Analysis, and our
environmental productdeclaration, which is key to
proving your carbon footprint.We also have an HPD, which is a
Health Product Declaration, thatshows your off gassing standards
and any sort of dirty thingsthat might be in your product.
As well as the declare label,which declares that I'm not
(11:27):
using any forever chemicals. Sofor our product, we have all of
these tests, and they'reverified by ASTM, a third party.
And then we actually team upwith the United Soybean Board
who sponsors a lot of ourresearch for the adhesive, and
the American Lung Association.So they send me to New York,
California, all over the placespeaking about this, because
(11:48):
there are studies dating back tothe 70's showing the effects of
dirty building material insideof your home. And that's what
has started to get a lot of theproducts that are cheaper and
perform better in some element,but also cause cancer like lead
paint, vinyl chloride, which isyour LVP flooring, Luxury Vinyl
(12:11):
Plank flooring, is actually madefrom one of the most hazardous
chemicals you can deal with. Itwas developed for gas warfare in
World War 1, and now it's in 60%of the flooring sold in the
United States, and the EPA hasfinally declared it as a
hazardous chemical even thoughthey noted it under Nixon in
1970 that the off gassing fromPVC or vinyl chloride is
(12:37):
horrendous for you. So the wordsget in out there. They're having
all of these tests and studiesthat are done by the National
Institute of Health, NIH,Harvard Chan School of Medicine,
and a lot of these differentplaces that are saying, hey,
look. Having dirty chemicalsinside of your home, inside of
(12:57):
your classroom, things like thatare proving to be hazardous. And
one of the reasons that all ofthese different asthma,
allergies, cancers are comingabout when people aren't smoking
anymore. What the hell is goingon? And the reality is that
we've known it for a long time,but it's a lot more profitable
(13:20):
to do something else.
Justine Reichman (13:21):
It's interesting. One of the things
is people went to luxury vinylflooring because they didn't
want to use wood, because theydidn't want to use more wood and
stuff like that. And that's alot more hazardous than the
stuff they were using before.And now, there seems to be, from
what you're saying, an alternatethat is plant forward that is
(13:42):
healthier. I'm wondering, ittook a while for people to get
on board with the luxury vinylflooring. What do you think the
runway or the time frame wouldbe for the majority of people to
get on board with this? What aresome of the challenges you face
when you try to sell this?
Gregory Wilson (13:59):
Price and profitability. So the reason LVP
is everywhere is not becausepeople want it. It's not because
it performs better. Luxury vinylplank costs between 40 and 80
cents a square foot to make, andpeople pay between 3 and $7 a
(14:20):
square foot for it. So everytime you have another link in
the supply chain of selling aproduct, like flooring, you have
a 200x multiplier. So if youhave a factory in Cambodia or
Vietnam where it's all made,because China has tariffs on it,
and it doesn't fit that model ofmaking so much money anymore.
All the mills moved to Cambodiaand Vietnam. And actually, LVP
(14:42):
was invented by one of my bamboocustomers.Very close with the
son of them. They were bought byShaw, and they sold their
company for hundreds of millionsof dollars, and then they
stepped down when all of thethings came out because
(inaudible) actually banned(inaudible) chloride in use in
public manufacturing spaces in2020 as part of their Clean Air
(15:05):
Act. And it was all moved to theMuslim region of China, the
Uruguayans. And so the US hasstopped allowing that material
coming in because it's using, Idon't know how dirty you want to
go into it, but it's using slavelabor to make something cheaper,
and then sending that compoundedmaterial to Vietnam or Cambodia
to make the finished good, theflooring. That way, you get
(15:27):
around the tariffs. So it's amoney grab when you can make
something for 50 cents, and thecustomer pays $10 or $5 for it.
That means there's an importer,there's a distributor, there's a
retailer, there's the contractorthat's all making money along
the lines there, and you make alot more money doing things like
that. And so that's why LVP isout there. It's not because it
(15:49):
performs better, it looksbetter. Nobody says, I want to
buy a house with plasticflooring. When you advertise
your house, you say that it'sgot wood flooring, it's got
granite countertops. But wheneverybody along the lawn can
make double margins on whatthey're doing as the natural
products, then you don't havethe reach. It's the same way in
foods. You probably see the samething where you have the type
(16:12):
of--
Justine Reichman (16:14):
You're using hemp, I mean, you're using
plants. It's just to create adifferent product. It's not to
create something consumable,it's to create something that is
sustainable that we live within,and we want to have a healthy
life given your experience withyour lungs. But anyway, my point
was just that it's still food.It's still made with food, it's
(16:37):
still plant forward, and it'spart of that whole theme, and
why many people are going backto that, because they know it's
more transparent.
Gregory Wilson (16:46):
Oh, absolutely. Everybody wants to know where
their food comes from. Wepromote that exact same
atmosphere. Because I live on anorganic farm here in Western
Kentucky, so my wife and I liveon 171 acre organic farm. It's
technically permaculture set upfruits, vegetables, cows, pigs,
chickens, berries, mushrooms,all these different type of
(17:07):
things that actually are selfsustaining because I'm not
really good at farming. But youcan go out and take the same
blueberries right outside thedoor there year after year. And
so people want to know whereyour food comes from, why
shouldn't people know where yourbuilding materials come from?
Because if you don't know, thatmeans somebody's probably doing
(17:28):
something to make more money outof it that they're not telling
you about. That's the cold, hardfact where we live right now,
everything is bought and paidfor, whether it's your
politician, whether it's yourcorporate CEO, or whether it's
your local, I don't know whichone your local stores like. The
(17:50):
more local you get, the betterit is because you can say, oh,
those vegetables that I showedyou earlier, the farmer who grew
those vegetables also grew ourhemp. And I stopped over to
check on the hemp and they said,hey, here's some foods that
weren't able to go to one oftheir larger buyers, one of the
larger supermarkets around here.And instead, they said, you
(18:13):
don't care what the food lookslike here, this is free. And so
I'm trading them some of themeats that we had here on our
farm, and they give mevegetables on theirs. And you
know who the people are. Youknow what they put on it. You
know how it was done.
Justine Reichman (18:27):
Yeah, that's brilliant. I'm curious, you
built this company as your 8thcompany as a Founder. Was there
anything you did differentlywith this company from lessons
learned from the past?
Gregory Wilson (18:41):
Absolutely.
Justine Reichman (18:42):
Can you share one or two things with us that
you think might be reallyimportant to other
founderstuning in?
Gregory Wilson (18:49):
Use your own money as long as you can.
Because once you sell themajority of your company,
somebody else owns you. So ifyou can develop your product or
proof of concept and have yourintellectual property approved,
then all of a sudden, yourvaluation goes way up, and you
can raise capital to the tune ofnot having to be a minority
(19:13):
owner in your own business. Sonot everybody has the luxury of
doing that right now. I haven'tbeen paid for six years now,
that's easier to say once you'vedone it a couple times before.
But that is really, really hard.And so the farther you can take
it without having to getinvestors involved, the more
(19:34):
likely you are going to berunning your own company later
on.
Justine Reichman (19:37):
Do you have one more lesson learned that you
could share that you think wouldbe pivotal?
Gregory Wilson (19:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Always do what's
right, not what's moreprofitable in the short term.
Because if you do what's moreprofitable in the short term,
then that will come back andbite you in the long term, and
you won't be living and doingwhat you want to do because
you're going to have compromisedwhat your actual ambition or
(20:04):
intentions were from the get go.And so it is always harder to do
the right thing, but doing thewrong thing means you're not
going to stick around for solong. Just like the vinyl
flooring guys, the guys thatdeveloped that filled it up and
got out quick. But now,everybody's starting to realize
about how dirty vinyl chlorideis. Like that train that wrecked
in Ohio last year, that washeaded to a vinyl flooring mill,
(20:27):
and that's what finally set offthe EPA because of public
outrage to say, hey, weshouldn't be having that
material in our neighborhoods.And so doing what's right and
not compromising your values isabsolutely important, even if
that does cause it to be moredifficult than it could have
been.
Justine Reichman (20:46):
Thanks for sharing that. I'm curious, what
your thoughts are on B Corps,because benefit corps, B Corps,
many times, there's a lot ofdifferent ways to look at it.
I'd love to hear what yourthoughts are because it sounds
like it may align or it may not.
Gregory Wilson (21:01):
Everybody always asks me about B Corps, and the
reality is, of what I'm doing, Ihave to stay laser focused on
what I set out to do initiallyrather than going after a lot of
the different things thatbecome, I don't know if they're
going to be a fad or if it'sjust a hot topic. But I've heard
(21:24):
that, oh, carbon negative is ahot topic. We did it because it
was right, not because it'sgoing to make you more money or
being a B Corp. People say, hey,why aren't you a B Corp? And I'm
like, well, I set this one upthe same way that I had always
been, which is a LLC. And beingthe owner of an LLC is the way
(21:44):
to make it work that I'mfamiliar with. So learning more
about it would be better. I getasked whether I should be a B
Corp regularly.
Justine Reichman (21:54):
I know that there's a difference between,
they have the B Corp and theBenefit Corp, right? And there's
some nuance between some ofthat. What resonates with me on
that is, for me, it's equally asimportant to have an impact in
the world as it is to makemoney. So as long as those
things align for me, that works.But that's just a personal
statement. Regardless of how Ido it, I would do it because I
(22:17):
want to have an impact in theworld. When I get up in the
morning, that's what drives me.
Gregory Wilson (22:20):
Absolutely. And so a whole bunch of labels and
things like that aren't reallywhat we chase after. We just
kind of try to make thehealthiest, most sustainable
product, and get it out there.More than that, it seems like
you're trying to prove thatyou're something, rather than
just go do it.
Justine Reichman (22:38):
Yeah, I could see that. Many people talk about
the community that you havethere and the resources and
access, but I think that itdepends on the community that
you're in. What resource that'sgoing to be for you, and where
your values find in line ifyou're focused on doing your
(22:58):
business, which I respect, and Iwould want to do too. You have
to decide. There's only so manyof us in the beginning, and
we're stretched thin. We'redoing like 12 different jobs. I
think there's a time and placethat it could change as people
go through the process as wellas they get more they get
(23:21):
larger. As they get moreresources, and they achieve
more, it's all about dividingand conquering in my mind.
Gregory Wilson (23:30):
I always set up the companies too. Instead of
having to raise capital, we haveequity that is earned by our
employees. So 10% of HempWood isowned by employees. We also have
10% of HempWood, which is earnedby our advisors and our board of
directors. Instead of raisingmoney to pay somebody, I use
that as incentive.
Justine Reichman (23:51):
It's smart. So in the next few years, what do
you hope to see, both for thecompany and the impact on a more
global level?
Gregory Wilson (24:00):
We are in the plans of building the HempWood
in the Netherlands, in Europe.So that means you won't have to
send something over the ocean.We're actually shipping a
container to Belgium next week.So that is something that's
really exciting being able tohave it locally made in Europe.
Justine Reichman (24:17):
Do you work with farmers over there already?
What was that process like beingthat you're over here? Were some
of the rules and regulationsdifferent that you had to
Gregory Wilson (24:29):
No. Actually, they're a lot easier because
accommodate for?
hemp was never made completelyillegal in Europe. So farming
hemp was already there. We'veliterally had over 7,000
inquiries for license onintellectual property, and about
half of those are from Europe.So one of the guys that I did
the bamboo with, Tom Mathis,when he said, whenever you're
(24:50):
ready, Greg, bring me on. And soI called Tom one day and I said,
hey, I can't answer all theseemails and phone calls coming
from Europe and you said, whenI'm ready. So here we are. And
so he joined our team two and ahalf years ago, and has been
working out how to license ourintellectual property to be able
(25:11):
to set up facilities over inEurope. And it actually just
came from some of our existingcustomers said, hey, it's kind
of expensive to ship it overhere, and it doesn't fit my
environmental goals by shippingsomething that far. Let's do
this. So they've gone to theirlocal government, and looked for
incentives for setting uphealthy natural materials. They
(25:33):
came back and said, let's do it.
Justine Reichman (25:36):
How large is your team today?
Gregory Wilson (25:38):
We are 24 people, plus my wife and I.
She's our office manager, and soshe's in charge of all the
money. I'm in charge of makingstuff and selling it. And then
we have Tommy, (inaudible) andMatt, who are our first three
interns that are now our plantmanager number one, plant
manager number two, and head ofengineering because we pulled
(26:02):
them from the local university,and they're all owners in the
company. And then each facilityhas a supervisor, and then they
each have five operators andthree helpers.
Justine Reichman (26:14):
Amazing. So when you look forward, we're in
2024, so by like 2030, what doyou hope to see?
Gregory Wilson (26:22):
With the bamboo, it ended up being 11,000 people
working there. I don't thinkthis one would get that big
because this will requireautomation because it's a higher
cost area. I would imagine thatif our goal is to build four of
these facilities in the UnitedStates, we got our second patent
approved not only for makingflooring, but for making
(26:44):
structural panel what we callOHB, Oriented Hemp Board. We
will have four flooring mills inthe United States with an OHB
mill beside it as yourmanufacturing cluster. So we'll
be able to have $100 million inrevenue in the US from those
facilities, and then a similaramount of sales from licensed
(27:06):
facilities overseas where youget a royalty fee.
Justine Reichman (27:09):
So if you look at the total population, what
percentage do you think by 2030will be making this choice
versus alternate choices?
Gregory Wilson (27:19):
3%. We will always be a specialty item. Will
never be the cheapest, willnever be the most convenient.
But it will be what everybodywants.
Justine Reichman (27:31):
And then if you have 3%, what do you expect
in terms of health for thatpopulation that is now making
this choice to get the hempwoodversus those that are not?
Gregory Wilson (27:44):
Well, there's a clear movement, and what people
actually care about more thansustainability is health. That's
something that people actuallygo out of their way to look for
when we have our Google searchresults. And if you get between
70 and 80,000 Google searches amonth, and you have over 50% of
(28:05):
those come from somebody lookingfor healthy foreign, we have
like 16 or 17% of those somebodylooking for sustainable foreign.
So the health impact is real andis gaining momentum. The
sustainability aspect of whatwe're doing, I live on an
organic farm, and that's what wedo. But the reality is that
(28:28):
changes whenever theadministration changes, whether
it's your local or your federal,and that's going to go back and
forth because people told mewith the bamboo that we were
going to be trading carboncredits in 2006 when it was
listed on the stock exchange.And that never happened. But
that was what one investmentbank using as the cherry on top
(28:50):
to lower other investors saying,here's the kicker. And whenever
you have a change inadministration, that changes.
And so the sustainability sideis great. The healthy side is
what people care about. Made inAmerica is also locally made is
a very big attribute of it, andthen being 20% harder than
hickory. So for a hard surfacelike flooring, that's paramount
(29:15):
to your success because it meansthat it's more durable than your
competition.
Justine Reichman (29:21):
So if our listeners or our founders wanted
to get more information fromyour graduate, what would be the
best way to do that?
Gregory Wilson (29:30):
Check out hempwood.com. Or you can go to
our Instagram or Facebook, whichare both HempWood as well. But
we actually made up the wordhempwood and then trademarked
it, and got the domains and allof the different social media
URLs because it had never beendone before. We're the only ones
in the world doing what we'redoing. So kind of all roads lead
to Rome. And if you do look upHempWood in Europe, you can see
(29:53):
HempWood UK. That's our licensethere. You can see HempWood
Netherlands, that's our licensethere. We have one that's
actually coming online. We haveHempWood Belgium, and HempWood
in Bulgaria.
Justine Reichman (30:05):
Maybe Australia one day, and New
Zealand.
Gregory Wilson (30:08):
Absolutely will be Australia. I actually own 20%
of a wood recycling plant inTasmania. My mentor who taught
me how to do most of this stuffis the chairman of the board of
the Institute of Engineers ofAustralia, but he solves the big
problems when it gets past me.And Jimmy that did the bamboo
(30:28):
with me, he's the chief engineerof the bamboo company that we're
both at. I sold my shares tostart this thing. Yeah, we'll
definitely set one up inTasmania. We've already got it
kind of planned out, putting itnext to our smart oak facility.
Justine Reichman (30:41):
That's exciting. So we're going to see
you on a global level here.People are going to have more
access to you. It might be alittle bit cost prohibitive,
depending on where what people'sfinances are. But I think on the
whole, you're working to workwith plants. It's better for
people's health, and it's betterfor the environment. You're not
letting all those gasses outtoo, so sounds like a triple
(31:05):
win.
Gregory Wilson (31:07):
Absolutely. The Achilles heel of what we're
doing is natural materialstypically don't cost less. So if
you look at the total lifespanof the product, if you're going
to have your hempwood floor for100 years in your home as
compared to a vinyl floor, whichgets changed out on average
every 10 years, it's not ascheap when you have to multiply
(31:27):
it by 10. And so the same methodthat you have with Tesla that
says, hey, it's not only youracquisition cost, but it's your
cost of how long that's going tolast when a combustion engine
actually degrades faster than anelectric engine because you're
exploding oil inside of theirgasoline, as well as the cost of
(31:49):
fueling it all the time. If youlook at the total product life
cycle, it is less expensive. Butthe fast fashion world that we
live in right now means thatpeople buy fast food, people buy
fast fashion. People buy all thejunk that you don't really need
because it's cheap andconvenient, and then it turns
you into having issues like Isee around here. I live in the
(32:12):
most obese state in the UnitedStates, also happens to be the
Mountain Dew capital, alsohappens to be the diabetes
capital. I love it here becauseof the nature and everything
that you can do outdoors. Butwhere we are, that's not the
priority, and so that'ssomething that you always have
(32:33):
to take into consideration thatyour customer base is never
going to be the majority becauseit's easier to do something
that's not right.
Justine Reichman (32:42):
Awesome. Greg, thank you so much for chatting
with me, sharing all thisinformation. Before I rid you my
floors in my house, I'm gonnahave to call you and get an
estimate for that.
Gregory Wilson (32:53):
Absolutely. We have three different grades of
flooring. It's between 6 bucksand 10 bucks a square foot. It's
not actually expensive. It's thesame price as your domestic card
would. The higher end yourcustom stuff we do, or
commercial, the lower end iswhat we call our character
grade. Like you see in my houseright here. This is our
character grade, and that'sbecause it has more of the
(33:15):
natural rustic look with theknots, the color variation and
all those things, which in myopinion actually looks better.
It looks more natural.
Justine Reichman (33:23):
I think it depends on the house. Some
people have a modern house, somepeople have a traditional house.
So I think based on that, itsounds like you have everything
from custom options to differentkinds of things. So we'll be in
touch. Thanks, Greg, so much. Welook forward to continuing this
conversation and sharing moreinformation and a little bit
(33:44):
more statistics, if possible, inour newsletter for our folks, so
we'll catch you offline aboutthat. But again, thanks for
joining me today.
Gregory Wilson (33:52):
Well, thank you for having us, and enjoy
California.
Good morning, and welcome to Essential
Ingredients. I'm your host,Justine Reichman. With me today
is Greg Wilson. He is theFounder of HempWood. Welcome,
Greg.
Gregory Wilson (00:26):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Justine Reichman (00:27):
I'm so pleased to have you here. I've heard so
much about what you're doing,and I'm excited to share it with
our community. Just now, youjust told me that you were
serious entrepreneurs, your 81.So from the get go, I'm curious.
As a serial entrepreneur, do youjust think it's in your DNA?
Gregory Wilson (00:47):
Well, I'm not good at working for people. I
gotta figure something out.
Justine Reichman (00:53):
Have they all been in this space?
Gregory Wilson (00:56):
Not all, but the most successful ones have been.
I started in college working inbuilding materials, studying
engineering and Chinese, so Iwent over to China. And when I
was studying there, I did aninternship in a bamboo flooring
mill, and that turned intocoming back and graduating,
(01:16):
selling my car, buying a planeticket and starting a company
that went public.
Justine Reichman (01:21):
Wow, congratulations. That's a big
deal. There's so much to go onthere for the people that are
listening and watching, and wantto learn more about how to
become a successfulentrepreneur, especially when
you started off while you're incollege. But let's go back a
little bit. Let's tell everybodya little bit about your
background, and let's just kickit off a little bit with how you
(01:44):
got into this specific industrytoday.
Gregory Wilson (01:48):
Well, I've always been the outdoorsy
person. I was always the kidthat was in the creek catching
crawfish and just wanting to beoutside hiking, biking, camping
and things. And then when I wentto college, I did very well in
math. I did not do well in thereading and writing part, and so
(02:10):
they asked if I spoke a secondlanguage. The answer was NO so I
took that as a challenge tolearn Chinese, because I figured
an engineer who speaks Chinesecan write his own ticket. So
that's how I got started gettinginto building materials coming
from a building family, and thengoing to China while I was in
(02:30):
college, and trying to solve aproblem of how to make bamboo
flooring harder so you couldactually use it for flooring
without having dings and dentsin it.
Justine Reichman (02:44):
I know that you do a lot in building
materials, and I know from thelimited conversation that we had
before this that a lot of itgoes back to being sustainable,
and equally, some of it isaround agriculture. I'd love to
know how that fits into whatyou're doing, and why did you
focus on that?
Gregory Wilson (03:04):
Well, so loving the outdoors means that I wanted
to do something that was more inthe natural building material
space, because I did aninternship also in college
working as a line engineer orassistant line engineer for
vinyl siding. And I thought thatthat was actually just
disgusting seeing all of thedifferent petroleum and
different stuff that they putinto your home. I didn't think
(03:29):
that was right, so I wanted towork on something that would
actually be a solution. So Istarted working with the bamboo,
and I actually got really sickfrom dealing with the
formaldehyde that's used in woodflooring and bamboo flooring.
Been hospitalized a bunch oftimes with my lungs because that
led me to doing this one on myown terms, and using soy instead
(03:51):
of formaldehyde as the bondingagent to hold together the
hempwood. So learning what Ilearned with the bamboo that was
relatively successful, and thenfixing the inherent problems in
it of something that actuallygrows faster and is better for
the environment, hemp ratherthan bamboo, and then using soy
(04:13):
instead of formaldehyde, becauseI didn't want to have my
coworkers getting sick like Idid. I still have those
respiratory problems. I'm stillon a payment plan for my last
lung treatment in 2021. And sowhen hemp became legal in the
United States with the 2014 farmbill, I knew the process that we
(04:33):
had developed, which is actuallybased off of the Fibonacci
Sequence.
Justine Reichman (04:38):
For those that are not familiar with the
Fibonacci Sequence, can you justbreak that down for us.
Gregory Wilson (04:45):
The Fibonacci Sequence is nature's algorithm.
So it's the second most commonnumber in nature. It's how every
plant grows, every blade ofgrass, every leaf on a tree,
because it's the most efficientuse of space. So behind Pi,
which is a circle is Phi, whichis the most efficient use of
(05:06):
space. And so the FibonacciSequence is the carbon
sequestration ratio of plants.161% of carbon is required to
grow one unit of cellulose, aswell as the compression ratio
for making all of the differentproducts that I've invented,
like the strand woven bamboo,eucalyptus, smart oak. And now,
(05:26):
hempwood.
Justine Reichman (05:27):
Wow. So by making these products that are
all plant based, what is theimpact that that's having on the
environment? Do you have anystatistics you could share?
Gregory Wilson (05:41):
You can talk about the environment outdoors
where we're the only true carbonnegative blowing material in the
world, and that's because we useour waste as our energy source
for the mill. So our bio burneruses our waste hemp to create
our thermal energy, and then wehave hydro and solar electric to
power of the mill. To thefarming practices where you're
(06:03):
not allowed to use fertilizers,pesticides or herbicides that
you typically use in agriculturelike row crops like corn, beans
and wheat, because actually, thegovernment hasn't regulated it
to allow any of the approvedproducts on it, so you
technically have to grow itorganically because you're not
(06:24):
allowed to spray it withanything. So the farming
practices are regenerative, justin their inherent nature of
being a net benefit for the soiland not spraying anything on it
using a plant based adhesive toreplace petroleum with the soy
is up cycling soy. That afterthey squeeze out the oil for
making biodiesel, we use theflour as our protein soy for our
(06:48):
adhesive to inside of the mill,not having any of our employees
getting sick from being arounddirty chemicals, or the
installers putting it into yourhome, as well as the people that
are actually living in that homenot having any VOC, Volatile
Organic Compounds, that leachout into people's homes whenever
(07:08):
you have dirty chemicals inthere. That's literally the
healthiest, most sustainableflooring in the world.
Justine Reichman (07:15):
Wow, so you've been doing this flooring now for
how long?
Gregory Wilson (07:19):
My journey to where I am now began in 1996. So
you're talking 28 years when Istarted laying flooring in our
family business, because myfamily are builders. And so
before I could drive a car, Iwas helping lug boxes of wood
flooring into houses for thefamily business, and then
(07:41):
learning how to install them. Tostudying building material
engineering in college startingin 2000, I actually went to an
academy of manufacturing, soengineering High School on the
STEM schools where I studiedliterally what I'm doing now.
And then went to college and didthe same thing, to starting my
first business in 2003 which isnow 21 years ago or so, working
(08:04):
with this strand woven bamboo tothen going to business school. I
ended up going to Harvard andjumped out and started my own
business. Because when I signedover the intellectual property
from the first one, they agreedto pay me to go to school
anywhere I could get into in theworld. So 2011, I finished
there, and then inventedhempwood in 2014. Filed the
(08:28):
patents in 2016. Built the firstmill in 2018. Built the second
mill in 2021. And now, we'rebuilding a third one.
Justine Reichman (08:39):
How much of the landscape of the country do
you have that has access tothis?
Gregory Wilson (08:43):
So all of our raw materials come from less
than 100 miles from ourfacility. Actually, we have over
80% of them that are grown righthere in Callaway County in
Murray, Kentucky. All of our soywhich comes from the processing
mills, they're within about 200miles of us. And then some of
(09:04):
our other components come fromWest Virginia, which is our
neighboring state as well. Soall of our raw materials come
from within a short distancebecause that helps with your
carbon calculation. And then weship our product all over the
United States straight to thejob site. So instead of having a
middleman that you have to sellit to a retail store that then
sells it to somebody, we justfind somebody who's really
(09:25):
interested in healthy,sustainable materials typically
for residential, somebody who'sin the healthcare field that
knows about all the dirty shitthat they're putting into your
out and say, I don't want tohave that. Or commercially, we
sell all over the US, and we'refinding our best commercial
customers, our universities andschools, because having improved
(09:49):
indoor air quality by not havingany VOCs leads to higher
cognitive ability and highertest scores.
Justine Reichman (09:56):
Amazing. So what percentage of the country
do you have at the moment thathas access or that is leveraging
this? And how large is that piethat you still want to reach out
to?
Gregory Wilson (10:06):
We have sold to all 48 states of the lower
states, as well as Hawaii. Wealso sell into Canada, Europe,
Australia, Japan. So it'sgetting out there. This is
technically our 6th year ofmanufacturing product. We've
done about 1.4 million squarefeet that's sold out there.
(10:27):
Probably 500 square feet isabout the average job that you
do. And so that means you've gota couple of thousands installs
that have gone not only in theUnited States, but all over the
place.
Justine Reichman (10:38):
Do you have any additional information that
you know besides from yourselfand the impact that you were
having from all the stuff thatwas on all the other materials?
So have there been any studiesdone, or anything further that
you could share about the impactof being able to have better for
you resources as you build out,whether it's homes, whether it's
(11:03):
residential or commercial?
Gregory Wilson (11:06):
We have our LCA, Life Cycle Analysis, and our
environmental productdeclaration, which is key to
proving your carbon footprint.We also have an HPD, which is a
Health Product Declaration, thatshows your off gassing standards
and any sort of dirty thingsthat might be in your product.
As well as the declare label,which declares that I'm not
(11:27):
using any forever chemicals. Sofor our product, we have all of
these tests, and they'reverified by ASTM, a third party.
And then we actually team upwith the United Soybean Board
who sponsors a lot of ourresearch for the adhesive, and
the American Lung Association.So they send me to New York,
California, all over the placespeaking about this, because
(11:48):
there are studies dating back tothe 70's showing the effects of
dirty building material insideof your home. And that's what
has started to get a lot of theproducts that are cheaper and
perform better in some element,but also cause cancer like lead
paint, vinyl chloride, which isyour LVP flooring, Luxury Vinyl
(12:11):
Plank flooring, is actually madefrom one of the most hazardous
chemicals you can deal with. Itwas developed for gas warfare in
World War 1, and now it's in 60%of the flooring sold in the
United States, and the EPA hasfinally declared it as a
hazardous chemical even thoughthey noted it under Nixon in
1970 that the off gassing fromPVC or vinyl chloride is
(12:37):
horrendous for you. So the wordsget in out there. They're having
all of these tests and studiesthat are done by the National
Institute of Health, NIH,Harvard Chan School of Medicine,
and a lot of these differentplaces that are saying, hey,
look. Having dirty chemicalsinside of your home, inside of
(12:57):
your classroom, things like thatare proving to be hazardous. And
one of the reasons that all ofthese different asthma,
allergies, cancers are comingabout when people aren't smoking
anymore. What the hell is goingon? And the reality is that
we've known it for a long time,but it's a lot more profitable
(13:20):
to do something else.
Justine Reichman (13:21):
It's interesting. One of the things
is people went to luxury vinylflooring because they didn't
want to use wood, because theydidn't want to use more wood and
stuff like that. And that's alot more hazardous than the
stuff they were using before.And now, there seems to be, from
what you're saying, an alternatethat is plant forward that is
(13:42):
healthier. I'm wondering, ittook a while for people to get
on board with the luxury vinylflooring. What do you think the
runway or the time frame wouldbe for the majority of people to
get on board with this? What aresome of the challenges you face
when you try to sell this?
Gregory Wilson (13:59):
Price and profitability. So the reason LVP
is everywhere is not becausepeople want it. It's not because
it performs better. Luxury vinylplank costs between 40 and 80
cents a square foot to make, andpeople pay between 3 and $7 a
(14:20):
square foot for it. So everytime you have another link in
the supply chain of selling aproduct, like flooring, you have
a 200x multiplier. So if youhave a factory in Cambodia or
Vietnam where it's all made,because China has tariffs on it,
and it doesn't fit that model ofmaking so much money anymore.
All the mills moved to Cambodiaand Vietnam. And actually, LVP
(14:42):
was invented by one of my bamboocustomers.Very close with the
son of them. They were bought byShaw, and they sold their
company for hundreds of millionsof dollars, and then they
stepped down when all of thethings came out because
(inaudible) actually banned(inaudible) chloride in use in
public manufacturing spaces in2020 as part of their Clean Air
(15:05):
Act. And it was all moved to theMuslim region of China, the
Uruguayans. And so the US hasstopped allowing that material
coming in because it's using, Idon't know how dirty you want to
go into it, but it's using slavelabor to make something cheaper,
and then sending that compoundedmaterial to Vietnam or Cambodia
to make the finished good, theflooring. That way, you get
(15:27):
around the tariffs. So it's amoney grab when you can make
something for 50 cents, and thecustomer pays $10 or $5 for it.
That means there's an importer,there's a distributor, there's a
retailer, there's the contractorthat's all making money along
the lines there, and you make alot more money doing things like
that. And so that's why LVP isout there. It's not because it
(15:49):
performs better, it looksbetter. Nobody says, I want to
buy a house with plasticflooring. When you advertise
your house, you say that it'sgot wood flooring, it's got
granite countertops. But wheneverybody along the lawn can
make double margins on whatthey're doing as the natural
products, then you don't havethe reach. It's the same way in
foods. You probably see the samething where you have the type
(16:12):
of--
Justine Reichman (16:14):
You're using hemp, I mean, you're using
plants. It's just to create adifferent product. It's not to
create something consumable,it's to create something that is
sustainable that we live within,and we want to have a healthy
life given your experience withyour lungs. But anyway, my point
was just that it's still food.It's still made with food, it's
(16:37):
still plant forward, and it'spart of that whole theme, and
why many people are going backto that, because they know it's
more transparent.
Gregory Wilson (16:46):
Oh, absolutely. Everybody wants to know where
their food comes from. Wepromote that exact same
atmosphere. Because I live on anorganic farm here in Western
Kentucky, so my wife and I liveon 171 acre organic farm. It's
technically permaculture set upfruits, vegetables, cows, pigs,
chickens, berries, mushrooms,all these different type of
(17:07):
things that actually are selfsustaining because I'm not
really good at farming. But youcan go out and take the same
blueberries right outside thedoor there year after year. And
so people want to know whereyour food comes from, why
shouldn't people know where yourbuilding materials come from?
Because if you don't know, thatmeans somebody's probably doing
(17:28):
something to make more money outof it that they're not telling
you about. That's the cold, hardfact where we live right now,
everything is bought and paidfor, whether it's your
politician, whether it's yourcorporate CEO, or whether it's
your local, I don't know whichone your local stores like. The
(17:50):
more local you get, the betterit is because you can say, oh,
those vegetables that I showedyou earlier, the farmer who grew
those vegetables also grew ourhemp. And I stopped over to
check on the hemp and they said,hey, here's some foods that
weren't able to go to one oftheir larger buyers, one of the
larger supermarkets around here.And instead, they said, you
(18:13):
don't care what the food lookslike here, this is free. And so
I'm trading them some of themeats that we had here on our
farm, and they give mevegetables on theirs. And you
know who the people are. Youknow what they put on it. You
know how it was done.
Justine Reichman (18:27):
Yeah, that's brilliant. I'm curious, you
built this company as your 8thcompany as a Founder. Was there
anything you did differentlywith this company from lessons
learned from the past?
Gregory Wilson (18:41):
Absolutely.
Justine Reichman (18:42):
Can you share one or two things with us that
you think might be reallyimportant to other
founderstuning in?
Gregory Wilson (18:49):
Use your own money as long as you can.
Because once you sell themajority of your company,
somebody else owns you. So ifyou can develop your product or
proof of concept and have yourintellectual property approved,
then all of a sudden, yourvaluation goes way up, and you
can raise capital to the tune ofnot having to be a minority
(19:13):
owner in your own business. Sonot everybody has the luxury of
doing that right now. I haven'tbeen paid for six years now,
that's easier to say once you'vedone it a couple times before.
But that is really, really hard.And so the farther you can take
it without having to getinvestors involved, the more
(19:34):
likely you are going to berunning your own company later
on.
Justine Reichman (19:37):
Do you have one more lesson learned that you
could share that you think wouldbe pivotal?
Gregory Wilson (19:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Always do what's
right, not what's moreprofitable in the short term.
Because if you do what's moreprofitable in the short term,
then that will come back andbite you in the long term, and
you won't be living and doingwhat you want to do because
you're going to have compromisedwhat your actual ambition or
(20:04):
intentions were from the get go.And so it is always harder to do
the right thing, but doing thewrong thing means you're not
going to stick around for solong. Just like the vinyl
flooring guys, the guys thatdeveloped that filled it up and
got out quick. But now,everybody's starting to realize
about how dirty vinyl chlorideis. Like that train that wrecked
in Ohio last year, that washeaded to a vinyl flooring mill,
(20:27):
and that's what finally set offthe EPA because of public
outrage to say, hey, weshouldn't be having that
material in our neighborhoods.And so doing what's right and
not compromising your values isabsolutely important, even if
that does cause it to be moredifficult than it could have
been.
Justine Reichman (20:46):
Thanks for sharing that. I'm curious, what
your thoughts are on B Corps,because benefit corps, B Corps,
many times, there's a lot ofdifferent ways to look at it.
I'd love to hear what yourthoughts are because it sounds
like it may align or it may not.
Gregory Wilson (21:01):
Everybody always asks me about B Corps, and the
reality is, of what I'm doing, Ihave to stay laser focused on
what I set out to do initiallyrather than going after a lot of
the different things thatbecome, I don't know if they're
going to be a fad or if it'sjust a hot topic. But I've heard
(21:24):
that, oh, carbon negative is ahot topic. We did it because it
was right, not because it'sgoing to make you more money or
being a B Corp. People say, hey,why aren't you a B Corp? And I'm
like, well, I set this one upthe same way that I had always
been, which is a LLC. And beingthe owner of an LLC is the way
(21:44):
to make it work that I'mfamiliar with. So learning more
about it would be better. I getasked whether I should be a B
Corp regularly.
Justine Reichman (21:54):
I know that there's a difference between,
they have the B Corp and theBenefit Corp, right? And there's
some nuance between some ofthat. What resonates with me on
that is, for me, it's equally asimportant to have an impact in
the world as it is to makemoney. So as long as those
things align for me, that works.But that's just a personal
statement. Regardless of how Ido it, I would do it because I
(22:17):
want to have an impact in theworld. When I get up in the
morning, that's what drives me.
Gregory Wilson (22:20):
Absolutely. And so a whole bunch of labels and
things like that aren't reallywhat we chase after. We just
kind of try to make thehealthiest, most sustainable
product, and get it out there.More than that, it seems like
you're trying to prove thatyou're something, rather than
just go do it.
Justine Reichman (22:38):
Yeah, I could see that. Many people talk about
the community that you havethere and the resources and
access, but I think that itdepends on the community that
you're in. What resource that'sgoing to be for you, and where
your values find in line ifyou're focused on doing your
(22:58):
business, which I respect, and Iwould want to do too. You have
to decide. There's only so manyof us in the beginning, and
we're stretched thin. We'redoing like 12 different jobs. I
think there's a time and placethat it could change as people
go through the process as wellas they get more they get
(23:21):
larger. As they get moreresources, and they achieve
more, it's all about dividingand conquering in my mind.
Gregory Wilson (23:30):
I always set up the companies too. Instead of
having to raise capital, we haveequity that is earned by our
employees. So 10% of HempWood isowned by employees. We also have
10% of HempWood, which is earnedby our advisors and our board of
directors. Instead of raisingmoney to pay somebody, I use
that as incentive.
Justine Reichman (23:51):
It's smart. So in the next few years, what do
you hope to see, both for thecompany and the impact on a more
global level?
Gregory Wilson (24:00):
We are in the plans of building the HempWood
in the Netherlands, in Europe.So that means you won't have to
send something over the ocean.We're actually shipping a
container to Belgium next week.So that is something that's
really exciting being able tohave it locally made in Europe.
Justine Reichman (24:17):
Do you work with farmers over there already?
What was that process like beingthat you're over here? Were some
of the rules and regulationsdifferent that you had to
Gregory Wilson (24:29):
No. Actually, they're a lot easier because
accommodate for?
hemp was never made completelyillegal in Europe. So farming
hemp was already there. We'veliterally had over 7,000
inquiries for license onintellectual property, and about
half of those are from Europe.So one of the guys that I did
the bamboo with, Tom Mathis,when he said, whenever you're
(24:50):
ready, Greg, bring me on. And soI called Tom one day and I said,
hey, I can't answer all theseemails and phone calls coming
from Europe and you said, whenI'm ready. So here we are. And
so he joined our team two and ahalf years ago, and has been
working out how to license ourintellectual property to be able
(25:11):
to set up facilities over inEurope. And it actually just
came from some of our existingcustomers said, hey, it's kind
of expensive to ship it overhere, and it doesn't fit my
environmental goals by shippingsomething that far. Let's do
this. So they've gone to theirlocal government, and looked for
incentives for setting uphealthy natural materials. They
(25:33):
came back and said, let's do it.
Justine Reichman (25:36):
How large is your team today?
Gregory Wilson (25:38):
We are 24 people, plus my wife and I.
She's our office manager, and soshe's in charge of all the
money. I'm in charge of makingstuff and selling it. And then
we have Tommy, (inaudible) andMatt, who are our first three
interns that are now our plantmanager number one, plant
manager number two, and head ofengineering because we pulled
(26:02):
them from the local university,and they're all owners in the
company. And then each facilityhas a supervisor, and then they
each have five operators andthree helpers.
Justine Reichman (26:14):
Amazing. So when you look forward, we're in
2024, so by like 2030, what doyou hope to see?
Gregory Wilson (26:22):
With the bamboo, it ended up being 11,000 people
working there. I don't thinkthis one would get that big
because this will requireautomation because it's a higher
cost area. I would imagine thatif our goal is to build four of
these facilities in the UnitedStates, we got our second patent
approved not only for makingflooring, but for making
(26:44):
structural panel what we callOHB, Oriented Hemp Board. We
will have four flooring mills inthe United States with an OHB
mill beside it as yourmanufacturing cluster. So we'll
be able to have $100 million inrevenue in the US from those
facilities, and then a similaramount of sales from licensed
(27:06):
facilities overseas where youget a royalty fee.
Justine Reichman (27:09):
So if you look at the total population, what
percentage do you think by 2030will be making this choice
versus alternate choices?
Gregory Wilson (27:19):
3%. We will always be a specialty item. Will
never be the cheapest, willnever be the most convenient.
But it will be what everybodywants.
Justine Reichman (27:31):
And then if you have 3%, what do you expect
in terms of health for thatpopulation that is now making
this choice to get the hempwoodversus those that are not?
Gregory Wilson (27:44):
Well, there's a clear movement, and what people
actually care about more thansustainability is health. That's
something that people actuallygo out of their way to look for
when we have our Google searchresults. And if you get between
70 and 80,000 Google searches amonth, and you have over 50% of
(28:05):
those come from somebody lookingfor healthy foreign, we have
like 16 or 17% of those somebodylooking for sustainable foreign.
So the health impact is real andis gaining momentum. The
sustainability aspect of whatwe're doing, I live on an
organic farm, and that's what wedo. But the reality is that
(28:28):
changes whenever theadministration changes, whether
it's your local or your federal,and that's going to go back and
forth because people told mewith the bamboo that we were
going to be trading carboncredits in 2006 when it was
listed on the stock exchange.And that never happened. But
that was what one investmentbank using as the cherry on top
(28:50):
to lower other investors saying,here's the kicker. And whenever
you have a change inadministration, that changes.
And so the sustainability sideis great. The healthy side is
what people care about. Made inAmerica is also locally made is
a very big attribute of it, andthen being 20% harder than
hickory. So for a hard surfacelike flooring, that's paramount
(29:15):
to your success because it meansthat it's more durable than your
competition.
Justine Reichman (29:21):
So if our listeners or our founders wanted
to get more information fromyour graduate, what would be the
best way to do that?
Gregory Wilson (29:30):
Check out hempwood.com. Or you can go to
our Instagram or Facebook, whichare both HempWood as well. But
we actually made up the wordhempwood and then trademarked
it, and got the domains and allof the different social media
URLs because it had never beendone before. We're the only ones
in the world doing what we'redoing. So kind of all roads lead
to Rome. And if you do look upHempWood in Europe, you can see
(29:53):
HempWood UK. That's our licensethere. You can see HempWood
Netherlands, that's our licensethere. We have one that's
actually coming online. We haveHempWood Belgium, and HempWood
in Bulgaria.
Justine Reichman (30:05):
Maybe Australia one day, and New
Zealand.
Gregory Wilson (30:08):
Absolutely will be Australia. I actually own 20%
of a wood recycling plant inTasmania. My mentor who taught
me how to do most of this stuffis the chairman of the board of
the Institute of Engineers ofAustralia, but he solves the big
problems when it gets past me.And Jimmy that did the bamboo
(30:28):
with me, he's the chief engineerof the bamboo company that we're
both at. I sold my shares tostart this thing. Yeah, we'll
definitely set one up inTasmania. We've already got it
kind of planned out, putting itnext to our smart oak facility.
Justine Reichman (30:41):
That's exciting. So we're going to see
you on a global level here.People are going to have more
access to you. It might be alittle bit cost prohibitive,
depending on where what people'sfinances are. But I think on the
whole, you're working to workwith plants. It's better for
people's health, and it's betterfor the environment. You're not
letting all those gasses outtoo, so sounds like a triple
(31:05):
win.
Gregory Wilson (31:07):
Absolutely. The Achilles heel of what we're
doing is natural materialstypically don't cost less. So if
you look at the total lifespanof the product, if you're going
to have your hempwood floor for100 years in your home as
compared to a vinyl floor, whichgets changed out on average
every 10 years, it's not ascheap when you have to multiply
(31:27):
it by 10. And so the same methodthat you have with Tesla that
says, hey, it's not only youracquisition cost, but it's your
cost of how long that's going tolast when a combustion engine
actually degrades faster than anelectric engine because you're
exploding oil inside of theirgasoline, as well as the cost of
(31:49):
fueling it all the time. If youlook at the total product life
cycle, it is less expensive. Butthe fast fashion world that we
live in right now means thatpeople buy fast food, people buy
fast fashion. People buy all thejunk that you don't really need
because it's cheap andconvenient, and then it turns
you into having issues like Isee around here. I live in the
(32:12):
most obese state in the UnitedStates, also happens to be the
Mountain Dew capital, alsohappens to be the diabetes
capital. I love it here becauseof the nature and everything
that you can do outdoors. Butwhere we are, that's not the
priority, and so that'ssomething that you always have
(32:33):
to take into consideration thatyour customer base is never
going to be the majority becauseit's easier to do something
that's not right.
Justine Reichman (32:42):
Awesome. Greg, thank you so much for chatting
with me, sharing all thisinformation. Before I rid you my
floors in my house, I'm gonnahave to call you and get an
estimate for that.
Gregory Wilson (32:53):
Absolutely. We have three different grades of
flooring. It's between 6 bucksand 10 bucks a square foot. It's
not actually expensive. It's thesame price as your domestic card
would. The higher end yourcustom stuff we do, or
commercial, the lower end iswhat we call our character
grade. Like you see in my houseright here. This is our
character grade, and that'sbecause it has more of the
(33:15):
natural rustic look with theknots, the color variation and
all those things, which in myopinion actually looks better.
It looks more natural.
Justine Reichman (33:23):
I think it depends on the house. Some
people have a modern house, somepeople have a traditional house.
So I think based on that, itsounds like you have everything
from custom options to differentkinds of things. So we'll be in
touch. Thanks, Greg, so much. Welook forward to continuing this
conversation and sharing moreinformation and a little bit
(33:44):
more statistics, if possible, inour newsletter for our folks, so
we'll catch you offline aboutthat. But again, thanks for
joining me today.
Gregory Wilson (33:52):
Well, thank you for having us, and enjoy
California.
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