Meet Max Jackson

Max Jackson inside a commercial cannabis greenhouse during flowering, surrounded by trellis-netted plants

I didn't follow the traditional path into cannabis (If one even exists). I came in through the side door—camera in hand, van on the road, and a gut feeling that legal cannabis could be done differently.

I'll always remember sitting parked on a rural hillside somewhere in my Jeep, some western state that had just gone legal, talking to my dad on the phone. I told him, "There should be some kind of consulting for dispensary experience."

Because at the time, some shops absolutely nailed it. They felt welcoming, smart, like a true retail experience. Not only for young stoners like me, but for your grandma, too. Others? Not even close. It's like they didn't check to see what worked in the states before them.

I didn't realize it then, but that was the beginning. I wasn't in the industry yet. I hadn't picked up a camera for a cannabis brand. I was just a traveler, a cannabis enthusiast, and someone who couldn't unsee the gap between what this industry could be and what it often was.

My first real step into the cannabis world happened in Alaska. I started shooting photos for a local dispensary—product shots, grow tours, marketing content. It felt natural. Cannabis was familiar to me, but now I was seeing behind the curtain.

From there, I drove to California to go deeper, specifically to L.A., where cannabis culture was exploding. My camera became my passport. Through photography, I documented West Coast facilities big and small, capturing what worked and what didn't. I met the people behind the scenes; the trimmers, the techs, the growers. The ones who made it all function.

Over the years of documenting operations across California, Oregon, and Alaska, I realized something important: Some of the best future leaders of your facility are the ones who helped build it. They know the infrastructure, the flow, the flaws—and they care, because they were there when it came together.

Then the Camera Went Down

Everything changed when I reconnected with someone I had met in college. He was now running a licensed grow in Northern California's Trinity County. One thing led to another, and that farm became both a photo client and a second home.

Hand holding a cannabis bud and wild blueberries with vibrant autumn ground cover in Alaska

Max Jackson tending to cannabis plants at night, with Instagram story shout-out overlay about grow work

I parked my van on-site and started soaking up everything I could about the plant. I listened to every podcast, read every white paper, and watched every YouTube deep dive I could find. Then I'd take what I learned to the head cultivator and say, "Am I understanding this correctly?" He'd shrug and say, "Let's go look."

That hands-on, open-source education turned into a job, and eventually into leadership. I learned from people who had been growing since childhood, people who were quite literally left on the hill with a box of magazines and food, and told not to let the plants die. We were in the middle of nowhere, two hours from the nearest Home Depot, so you learned how to fix everything. Fast.

We battled pests, ran late-night clone marathons, optimized workflows—and through it all, I continued to fall in love with the plant itself. Eventually, I became the general manager.

It may not have made sense on paper, but it made all the sense in the world on the ground. I was living in the van, off-grid, in the dirt and in the details, managing six flowering greenhouses with 13,000 plants, plus a 10,000-plant vegetation facility and a clone room to support it.

Cultivation Baptism by Fire

At one point, a consultant sold the owners a dream: automation, one-gallon coco pots, low labor, high yield. They skipped one small thing: doing the math. The irrigation system designed was undersized by 40%.

So there we were: 2,700 plants per greenhouse, all with drippers that barely functioned. Plants were stressed, yields were suffering, and we were hand-watering thousands of plants daily just to keep crops alive. I had to figure out flow rates, pump specifications, and irrigation calculations with no budget and no margin for error.

We rebuilt the entire system from the ground up. I learned irrigation system design through trial and error and crisis management, developing zone configurations and pressure calculations that actually worked at scale.

The results were immediate. Consistent irrigation, healthier plants, eliminated labor bottlenecks, and best of all a happier team. Later, I found out the consultant took our fix and implemented it in his own flagship facility.

That was just one of many structural failures we inherited. The buildout was sloppy. Critical systems were undersized. Infrastructure decisions had been made without understanding operational realities. And somehow, the plants kept getting blamed for poor performance.

That's when I realized something deeper: People are throwing millions at cannabis infrastructure without a clue who's going to keep it alive.

Cannabis Wise Guys: The Bridge Between Plants and Capital

Eventually, I left the farm and launched Cannabis Wise Guys. The goal was simple: Help people avoid the mistakes I had to live through.

Who I help

Cultivation Operations - System optimization, efficiency improvements, and scaling strategies
Investment Groups - Technical due diligence, feasibility analysis, and operational reality checks
Pre-Construction Teams - Facility design, infrastructure planning, and buildout consulting to prevent costly mistakes
Technology Integration - Sensor networks, monitoring systems, and automation implementation
Crisis Management - Rapid intervention, troubleshooting, and harvest rescue

Sometimes that means crawling under a bench to fix drainage. Sometimes it means explaining defoliation to an investor who doesn't understand why we "pluck leaves off money trees." Either way, I've learned how to speak both languages.

That's what I do now. Bridge the gap between the plant and the people funding it.

Because growers often don't understand investors. and investors almost never understand the plant.

Max Jackson inspecting a large commercial flowering greenhouse with his red converted ambulance parked outside

Max Jackson smiling with diesel engine oil on his face after repairing a critical generator

Academic Roots, Practical Purpose

Before I ever stepped foot in a grow, I studied political science and economics at Florida Atlantic University. At the time, I thought I was preparing for law school. But what I was really doing was studying how systems break, and how disconnected policy decisions create downstream chaos.

I used every opportunity to research cannabis: market structure, regulatory development, public health, tax burdens. I saw the same patterns across industries—short term thinking and people making decisions without understanding the reality on the ground.

Years later, when I found myself in the trenches of cannabis cultivation, I started seeing those same disconnects up close:

Owners who think the problem is labor, when it’s infrastructure
Regulators who write rules based on fear, not science
Cultivators who don’t have time to beg for their needs upstream

That’s where I come in.

Half translator. Half firefighter. Full-time advocate for smarter cultivation.

I still live on the road—these days in a converted ambulance that’s part mobile office, part workshop, part home. My copilot, Durban (named after my favorite strain, Durban Poison), is usually somewhere nearby keeping me company between site visits, client calls, and greenhouse walk-throughs.

This lifestyle isn’t a gimmick. It’s how I stay close to the work—plugging in where I’m needed, staying nimble, and helping solve problems on-site, not just from a desk.

Max Jackson standing beside his converted ambulance camper van with his dog Durban in a forest during fall

The Cannabis Wise Guys Difference

We believe in uncomfortable truths over comfortable lies. When an investment group approaches us about launching a new cultivation operation, we analyze market conditions and tell them honestly whether it's the right time to enter the industry. When we discover operational issues, we address them head-on, even if that means delivering difficult news to ownership.

Our consulting philosophy is simple: we provide the same level of care and expertise to your operation that we demanded in our own. That means:

No sugar-coating challenges or selling silver bullet solutions
Real, practical strategies based on proven experience
Focus on foundational excellence over chasing trends
Direct, honest communication about what works and what doesn't
Solutions scaled to your operation's specific needs and constraints

Looking Forward

The cannabis industry doesn't need more theoretical experts - it needs proven problem solvers who understand the complex realities of commercial cultivation. Whether you're battling operational challenges, scaling your facility, or evaluating market opportunities, Cannabis Wise Guys brings battle-tested expertise and uncompromising honesty to every engagement.

Ready to experience the difference that real expertise makes?