The words “legacy” and “legend” get tossed around a lot in the Cannabis industry, as everyone scrambles to make their name as the community emerges from the underground. Shiloh Massive is one of those names that sits comfortably next to those words.
A legend who learned from legends, Massive started hustling weight and collecting seeds at a young age.
He grabbed adventure by the calyx and journeyed wherever the Cannabis smoke carried him, earning a name for himself around the globe in the process.
Now, he’s a partner in Kolaboration Ventures (KVC), a vertically integrated group of significant size and scale, built to weather the tumultuous Cannabis seas.
Sprouting from seed
Growing up in Gig Harbor, Washington, Massive developed a taste for top-tier indoor strains, which proliferated in the area. A genetics geek was born.
“I read this article about Nevil [Schoenmakers] and the Cannabis Castle, and as a stoner kid in high school, I thought that was so cool,” he said. “I never wanted to run out of weed. Back then, you couldn’t have big cloning rooms, but if you collected and kept all the seeds, you could keep growing more.”
Massive started banking seeds and growing, drawing inspiration from Nevil out of Amsterdam and Marc Emery out of Vancouver, British Columbia, because they were famous for their seed libraries.
“I kept going up to B.C.; they had the Blunt Brothers up there,” he said. “It was their own version of Amsterdam.”
He and his friends started their own guerrilla grows, Northwest style.
“We had this strain, The Pez — anyone up there knows about the Pez — and it would survive the elements,” he said. “We’d burrow into the blackberry bushes on what we called O.P.P., other people’s property. You could cut out a dome in there and grow under it. We’d have to sneak in there at night and harvest it. That’s what was fun about it. It was an adventure, flying under the radar.”
After a stint in California for college, he got a job with Odwalla juice and, shortly afterward, moved to Oregon and got a house with a basement.
“From then on, it was nothing but weed,” he said. “I quit the Odwalla job and just grew weed.”
Developing root stock
Massive knew from his time in college that California was where he wanted to end up. When Measure G hit Mendocino County in 2000, allowing for the cultivation of outdoor Cannabis plants, he set a plan in motion.
He moved to Nice, California, because it sounded nice, and it was nestled right up against the Cannabis mecca of Mendocino County. That’s where he saw an ad in the paper.
“It said, ‘Come get your medical recommendation,’” Massive said. “I called the number and went up this dirt road. I turned the corner, and there were like 180 plants there. I was like, ‘I hope I’m in the right place.’ I got up there, and there were Eddy Lepp and Dr. Milan Hopkins.”
It was a pivotal moment in Massive’s life.
Before long, he was growing with that crew and rooming with Jack Herer.
“Eventually, we grew like 40,000 plants on the side of the highway,” he said.
Sesh with your idols
After some time living in Nice, Massive took a logical next step and moved to Amsterdam.
“That’s when I met Nevil, and I got some seeds from him,” he said. “It was pretty crazy going from sitting in the back of math class in the 1980s, reading in High Times about this guy named Nevil, and then starting to grow, heading to Amsterdam and that leading me right to Nevil’s doorstep.”
He also met Baba Soma of Soma Seeds fame during that time, and the two remain friends to this day. After a couple of years, he decided it was time to go back to Cali.
“I came back from Amsterdam with enough money to buy a house, and I raised my kid in that house for 19 years,” he said.
Vertical progression
Now, as the director of genetics for a group that operates retail, cultivation, distribution, manufacturing and extraction, Massive is writing a major chapter in his life story.
Among KVC’s holdings are retailers CoCo Farms and V Town farms, a type 7 lab coming online, and multiple mixed-light and sun-grown licensed properties totaling 180,000 square feet of flowering canopy.
He works closely alongside his cultivation team, run by Flip, the director of cultivation; Lauren, the cultivation/compliance officer; and Miguel, the lead cultivator. Earlier this year, the company won a gold medal at the California State Fair for its Rank Rose, the Mixed Light entry under the brand name Pacific Reserve.
“It’s a highlight to be solid in our own bubble, controlling the supply chain and being vertically integrated,” Massive said. “It’s a huge accomplishment. It’s so hard to exist in California. For a thing that’s almost killed me more than one time, and that’s put me in jail, it’s something entirely different when you’re successful at business in such a crazy system as California. Cannabis is the hardest business to succeed at in California, legally.”
Between their cultivation licenses, the team usually works with a rotating menu of roughly 30 strains, and they’re currently about to dig into their winter pheno hunt. They never buy bulk from other growers and use their own material in their jars and products.
Massive couldn’t be happier for that kid reading Cannabis magazines in the back of high school math class.
“I’ve been an ambassador for Cannabis and the Cannabis world for so long,” Massive said. “I’ve been a freedom fighter, and I hold the plant in high esteem. I let the plant guide my life. I’m just known for being an all-around Cannabis pirate.”
