This series was created to shine a spotlight on individuals who play vital roles in the CEA and Indoor Ag industries. These individuals, the "gurus," are the experts and innovators driving the advancements in this technology.

The series is hosted and moderated by Eden Green’s Digital Marketing Manager, Bryson Funk and will be held on a monthly basis.

“We really want to bring attention to the individuals actively working "on the ground" within CEA and Indoor Ag facilities. These individuals could include growers, operations personnel, marketing and sales representatives, and logistics experts. You never know who we will bring on next.”

- Bryson Funk

They will be held on Instagram live which allows for live commenting and questions. Questions are highly encouraged. We want to know what interests YOU.

In Episode 3, we chatted with Grower, Stacia Lewis. Stacia has been working for Eden Green for over 3 years and has touched every aspect of the grow team. If you have an interest in the grow side of CEA, this is the episode for you.

Watch the full episode here >>>

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Read the episode transcript below

Bryson Funk

Hey, everyone what's going on? Welcome to episode three of greenhouses gurus. My name is Bryson funk, I'll be your host tonight. And we have a really awesome guest with us today. She is a grower at Eden green, her name is Stacia Lewis, and she's going to be joining us, we're gonna be kind of diving into, you know, the growth side of things again, and there's always a unique perspective that can come from these so I'm really excited for tonight. Another thing I would like to ask you guys to do, if you are interested in this series, we have two others that are on our Instagram reels, if you want to go back and look at them, one is with another grower. And then also, there's one where we kind of dive into the operation side of things with our director of business operations. So check those out if you guys get a second, some really good information coming through those. So we're really stoked. As far as tonight goes. If you have any questions, please add them. I'll be looking through the questions as we go. If you have anything specific related to anything you're hearing or just kind of any general questions about the industry, or about Eden green, or about how we do things, go ahead and throw them in there. And we'll try to get those answered. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and reach out to Stacia and get her in here.

Again, thanks for joining everybody. This is gonna be really awesome. Really fun. Let's see here. All right. Here we go. Stacia, what's up? Hi. I'm good. I'm good. How are you? Okay, sweet. Yeah, I see the plants in the background. I've got my plants in the background. Right. You've got to have the you got to have the plants. This is a plant talk show. So you got to have the plants. Yeah. What do you have? What do you have that pathos in the back?

Stacia Lewis

Yeah. So this is a Pearls and Jade Pathos. And then over here, I have Peperomia, Heartleaf, Stryn. Via cuttings from Aaron Field’s plant itself.

Bryson Funk

That's awesome. I'm not exactly sure what I've got back here. I think this is a Ming right here. And then I think I've got a snake plant. And I'm not sure if some of these are my wife's. And some of these are my parents. So I'm not sure what I'm looking at here. But that's why you're the grower and I'm not right? Well, again, thanks for joining us tonight. I appreciate you popping in. Let's just kind of start with the basics and get to know you a little bit better. First of all, like, What is your name? What do you do for Eden Green? Let's dive in? Yeah,

Stacia Lewis

My name is Stacia Lewis, I am a grower with Eden Green. I've been with a company literally three years in February. So I've been there since the beginning of time. I'm a crop schedule, specialist. And also variety selection. So I help with space and time in the greenhouse as well as what varieties that we do choose to grow as far as production. Yeah.

Bryson Funk

Okay, that's super interesting. We'll get into that a little bit later. Because I find that is a side of greenhouse growing, or really growing in general, I think that a lot of people glaze over. A lot of people don't really think about it, especially in a business setting. Right. There is a schedule, there are deadlines to make, you have to make money and a part of that is staying on schedule. So I think we'll dive into that a little bit deeper later. But outside of Eden Green, what are your hobbies? I know into I know, music film, you're very artistic person yourself.

Stacia Lewis

I love to consume media, I read a lot of books, I listen to a lot of music, I watch a lot of movies, I like to be outside, I like to go hiking, hang out with my cat. Just you know, typical stuff,

Bryson Funk

Do you forage?

Stacia Lewis

To say that I do actively would be a lie. To say that I want to very badly would be the truth. It's hard in central North Texas, because there's just not a lot of variety out there that I would trust. If I was in somewhere like Appalachia or the P&W you know, I'd probably be out there every day.

Bryson Funk

Thats so true. I have a dream of being able just to walk out and forage myself and I follow a couple foragers on Instagram. And I'm like, it looks so easy when they're doing it and I know it's not and if I eat the wrong mushroom, I'll die. So you know. Yeah, it definitely makes me nervous for sure. But you mentioned music, what kind of music are you?

Stacia Lewis

Oh my god. A little bit of everything recently I've been kind of getting back into like early 2000s new metal along with weirdly like the newer local like Texas folk country. I've been seeing a lot of those artists live recently.

Bryson Funk

Do you want to drop some names?

Stacia Lewis

For sure I'm always gonna say The Band Laredo because they're incredible. The singers are Granberry local, as well as she's not local to here but her name is Steph Cash. She's a country artists out of Austin. Incredible. I saw her at a small venue a few weeks back, I got the chance to talk to her. She was nice. She asked me if I was gonna feed her dogs for the night and I told her Yes, I am.

Bryson Funk

That's awesome. How close do you live to Fort Worth?

Stacia Lewis

I live in Cleburne it's about, if you take the toll road give or take 25-30 minutes from Fort Worth. So not far, but very luckily in Cleburne because it's about 15 minutes to Eden Green.

Bryson Funk

Yeah that's really nice. But I was wondering, because I know you see a lot of bands live do you make the hike?

Stacia Lewis

Sometimes I do if it's worth it, a lot of the bands that I'd really love to see normally stay up towards Dallas, and it's gonna have to be a special band to get me to drive to Dallas, but Tulips in Fort Worth is a really good venue. I've seen some good bands at Tanahills in the past year that's actually in the stockyards. But it's like the traversable area of the stockyard. So not too hard to get around to the venues that I frequent. In Fort Worth

Bryson Funk

Nice, nice. Yeah, there are some really great venues in Fort Worth to hit up. For those of you who are watching and don't know, we at Eden green are located kind of southwest of Fort Worth in North Texas so Fort Worth is the closest large city and then you have Dallas if you go a little bit farther east. But yeah, Cleburne is where we're located. And it's, it is a drive, it definitely is a drive out there. Also, it's a great, great town, great city. They're super awesome to work with. And so yeah, we're happy to be there. And plus, we get dope people like Stacia. So yeah. Okay, well, then let's dive into growing. I think there's a lot to that, that it's not a simple process. It's not just growing, there's so many different facets to it. What does a day in the life of your type of grower look like at Eden green?

Stacia Lewis

Yeah, so. So I come in the greenhouse before the sun comes up. A lot of people wouldn't like that. But it's one of my favorite parts about the job. I definitely start off my day with a walk of the greenhouse, you have to make sure everything's looking like it needs to. And if it's not, you got to put a plan in place to get it right. I always make sure to check in with the teams every day. It's not a necessity. But I really like to know what's going on around the greenhouse and make sure everybody's kind of on the same page. So I'll check in with Jordan, our production supervisor, usually check in with Seth and Stephanie, that's going to be our greenhouse 2 manager and greenhouse 2 assistant manager. And yeah, a lot of my job is talking to people.

Bryson Funk

Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like observation is a big part of being a grower. Right? So I think that's something that is unique about a greenhouse setting is, is you can see so many plants in such a short amount of time. How long does it take you to get eyes on every plant and our greenhouse

Stacia Lewis

Usually takes about an hour if I'm going down every single row, and I'm really looking at plant spot by plant spot, it's going to take probably an hour and a half. It's a big greenhouse for those of you who haven't been out there.

Bryson Funk

Yeah, well, how many plant spots is that? Do you know off the top of your head?

Stacia Lewis

I think approximately 350,000, maybe a little bit less? Yeah, that number, but I know it's around 350,000.

Bryson Funk

Okay, so you can essentially look at 350,000 plants in under an hour. That's pretty good timing. You know, I think that is something that is so unique about our setup. For anyone who's watching, if you guys haven't seen our setup, I would really encourage you after this to check out our Instagram, we have a lot of videos and pictures. And we are a vertical greenhouse system. So everything is under a greenhouse roof. We use all the natural sunlight, and we are still able to grow 18 feet high. So I think Stacia, you could probably talk more about this since this is your realm. But when it comes to growing up 18 feet high, what are some of the challenges that come with that, as a grower,

Stacia Lewis

I think as a grower, the main challenge is going to be the obvious, there's going to be variability from a foot off the ground to 18-20 feet off the ground. So a big part of our job as growers is ensuring that we can kind of bridge the gaps that that variability opens. One way that Eden Green does that that I think is a great innovation is our vertical lighting system. Obviously, in a Texas summer, we get more sun than we need. So it's not a nessecity. But on those cloudy days, and you know, on those lower plant spots our vertical lighting system really helps reach that DLI that we want on the bottom to match it with the top so that all of the plants look. And then, in addition to the lighting system, we also have airlines running up each of our vines, which helps with the difference in our air from the top to the bottom. And we really just have figured out and are still working on figuring out the correct bridge for all of those gaps. And that's a really part of our job day to day kind of innovating and helping what's already there, if that makes sense.

Bryson Funk

Yeah. So there's a couple of things that you touched on. Again, if you're watching and are unfamiliar with our system, we have a proprietary light system, which is essentially being fed different data points through sensors that are located in the greenhouse, that are constantly taking in the amount of sunlight that we get the natural amount of sunlight, comparing it to a preset that we have, and then adjusting the lighting system up and down according to different areas that need more or less light. So that is something that the owners and creators of this company developed specific difficulty for our system. And I think that, you know, in full transparency, that was something that we struggled with a while back, was that consistency from top to bottom. We were seeing really large size differences, right, maybe a couple ounces on the bottom to over a pound on top right, we're seeing some pretty drastic gains. And I think you've seen that right? We've come a long way in the past couple years.

Stacia Lewis

yeah, I mean, that touches back on to exactly what I said, for a long time, a big part of our every day was getting live data and seeing which configuration which lights work better. It's just that constant innovation, that is a big part of our job as growers at Eden Green.

Bryson Funk

So I do want to plug your LinkedIn, you do have a LinkedIn. That is it's just Stacy Lewis, correct.

Stacia Lewis

I should pop up. There's not a lot of Stacia's. So yeh, Stacia Lewis.

Bryson Funk

And in your LinkedIn bio, it says that you're interested in sustainability, natural resource conservation, and agro ecology. Obviously, I know what sustainability is, but natural resource conservation and agro ecology what are those? Tell us about those?

Stacia Lewis

Basically, three different words for kind of similar concepts. It's all going to be related to I mean, first and backwards to natural resource conservation. A big reason why I got into CEA was because of the I don't want to call it a crisis. Yeah. But the the issues we're having with water all over the world, not just in the US, and definitely not just in Texas. So those I mean, everything that I'm interested in all kinds of leads back to just conserving what we have. We're using what we can, cutting where we can, you know?

Bryson Funk

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So did you grow up in Cleburne?

Stacia Lewis

yeah. So I actually my family is from a really small town a little bit further south in Texas. Not too far about an hour called Iredale. I think there's about 200 people there. Probably half of them are my family. But I moved to Cleburne. Oh, god, it's been a long time. I've lived here for most of my life, and I went to high school just down the road to a tiny little town called Blum graduated with, like, 27 people. And yeah, Cleburne is a small town too, but my family's here. Other people that I care about are here.

Bryson Funk

Yeah. Well, the reason I asked is because it doesn't seem like very often smaller towns have a focus on sustainability or, you know, conservation or anything like that. And so I'm wondering, how did you get there? How did that become something that was important to you?

Stacia Lewis

So as I mentioned, I grew up in rural Texas, obviously, I grew up around traditional agriculture. Livestock, crops, crops for the livestock, my family runs cattle. My high school got days off for the county fair, because so many people, so many people in the school showed animals. So it's a world that I grew up in, and it's a world that I grew up around. And I didn't, I guess even realize how big the push for sustainability in agriculture was, until I discovered Eden green. I actually found the job. But it just sounded too good to be true. I was shocked because, you know, in Cleburne, such a small town, there's this almost revolutionary business? Yeah, there's nothing exactly like it. I'm so fortunate to have been hired on, I actually started at the entry level position at Eden green, I started as a production assistant. And worked my way into the Grow team to become the girl that I am today.

Bryson Funk

Yeah, I think you're simplifying it a lot. I'll brag a little bit. You know, I was the one that interviewed you and hired you and brought you on and I remember thinking, we were hiring for that production level for that production assistant. And I remember looking at your resume, and this is a great segue into the next question, but kind of that career journey. And I remember the thing that stood out was, you worked at Starbucks before coming to Eden green. And I, for some reason, I just thought to myself, listen, if she can work at Starbucks and crush it at Starbucks and work her way up, she can work anywhere, because I understand like Starbucks, it has to be so hard to work at. And knowing that like not only do you have so many people coming through, but also caffeine fiends coming through, you know.

Stacia Lewis

The intensity change from Starbucks to Eden green has been a blessed reprieve. I will not, you know, working in a production environment is stressful. But I tell people this a lot. There's a reason I work with plants. I like people. I love them, some of them. But Starbucks was a hectic experience. I was a shift manager during the beginning and into the middle of COVID. And I have stories for you.

Bryson Funk

I'm sure, I'm sure. But you know, I do want to brag on you a little bit, to watch what you've done in three years in the company has been pretty incredible to watch. I definitely am proud of you. There's a lot of people that are proud of what you've done in those three years. You've touched almost every position in that company, especially on the growth side, you have touched every part of the growth side track. And so I think that is pretty awesome. Because there are people out there that have zero experience in growing, they have zero experience in greenhouses or anything of that nature, and then it might feel out of reach, you know, it might feel like they don't know enough. And I think that this is a really cool story because you had a passion you had a desire. And whereas you didn't really maybe know how to pursue that. At that point. You took the leap, and you're like, hey, I want to be a grower. I love plants, but I'm gonna take that first step and work in production. And then you just put the pedal to the metal and just crushed everything that you're given. Do you have kind of any things you'd like to say or any tips to somebody who is wanting to get into this industry, whether it's growing or controlled environment ag, and just doesn't really know how to?

Stacia Lewis

I would definitely say it can be daunting. I mean, I mentioned earlier how I had never even heard of CEA before I discovered eating green. So when you're in it, but not really in it, you want to be in it, it can be very daunting, I would say the best thing that you can do is get experience. If you have to get in at the entry level, you might have to get in at the entry level and spend the time to learn. Collage is very important, you know, education is very important, but there really is nothing like hands on experience. Um, I feel I have unique perspective as a grower being that I have worked in almost every position that Eden Green has to offer. And I can kind of understand other people that work there, and also the processes that go on. It just, it really helps to have a wide, broad understanding of how everything works together. Because it's a web, you know, if one person's behind everyone else's behind, if one person's ahead, everyone else is ahead. And you kind of, especially at a grower level, you have to understand that you don't just get to know how the plants work. But on the plant side of things, I will say, as far as CEA specific information, I know that there's not as much available as we would all like, but it is out there. Um, I would definitely say, like, EGrow. So many different universities have such great papers and even courses on CEA. There's an Oklahoma State hydroponic pruning article that I referenced, probably weekly. The information is out there, you just have to look for it. And you have to put in the time, I can't even tell you how many hours I've put in to learning everything. I can't even say everything learning as much as I can. And I will say every day I'm learning there's not a day that goes by that I don't learn something new.

Bryson Funk

Yeah. That's awesome. No, I think it's, I think it's important because you are working with a living thing. And I think that's something else that a lot of people don't think about, this isn't a manufacturing job where you're, print molding, something. each individual plant is alive. And each individual plant is affected by different things. And so I feel like it is constantly changing and constantly shifting and touching on the fact that this is a new part of the industry, right? It's not super old, at least in the United States, and definitely not in Texas. It's not all in Texas, that's for sure. But you know that there aren't a whole lot of resources, specifically for CEA, right? Are there any other CEA specific resources that you would point someone towards? That can really help them gain the knowledge they need to work in CEA?

Stacia Lewis

Yeah, if you Google, e grow, just e grow. Hundreds of articles will pop up written by the most prominent names in the industry, professors. Pretty much anyone who knows anything that you can think of, I would definitely say e grow. I know that, that glaze is starting to offer courses that you can sign up for and take. My team actually took one earlier this year. And I was really insightful, and I enjoyed it. And I know that they're working on getting more, more of those classes up and more information for everybody to learn from. But those would probably be my main sources I referenced egrow all the time. There are a couple of professors that us as growers kind of get fangirly about and they have many, many papers in ego. So that's probably my main source. I'd say.

Bryson Funk

That's awesome. That is nerding out to the 10th degree and I'm here for it. I love it. I love it.

Stacia Lewis

Let me um, Dr. Greenhouse has a podcast where she talks to some very important people in the industry and I listen to the podcast all the time. That's one more that I will plug.

Bryson Funk

Okay. Yeah, I think I think that finding those places that are from people who are still in it is so important, right? It is a shifting and changing environment and industry. And I feel like every month, there's something you know, there's something that's changing or something new. And it is sometimes hard to keep up with for sure. So, when you were when you're going through high school, and then just out of high school, and then you know, kind of into that college or work realm where you just you're an adult, was there anything in particular that that prepared you for this? Or do you feel like most of this was kind of just flying by the seat of your pants? And then just crushing it? Does that make sense? Like, was there anything we kind of prepared you to work in, in the greenhouse setting or with plants? Or was it just kind of taking the leap of faith?

Stacia Lewis

I spent a lot of summers when I was younger, burning brush and helping my grandma and vegetable garden. Yeah. I'll say the physical aspect of being a grower is something that kind of came very easy to me because it's something I'm accustomed to. It's something I grew up doing. Just, you know, digging in the dirt. But there's none of that at Eden green. It is physical, sometimes, obviously, as I mentioned, but it's different. But other than that, not really, like I said, I come from a world of very traditional agriculture. And the only push toward agriculture, I would say in the area that I grew up is toward traditional, mostly cattle being, you know, North Central Texas. So most of it was me just deciding that I wanted this and ensuring that that happened. Yeah.

Bryson Funk

That's awesome. I think that's one of the things that I do love most about your story is, I mean, you really have kind of just like, scrapped for all of it, you know, and you've come in and you won't take no for an answer. And you just keep learning more, and you keep getting better. And that's something that I definitely appreciate about you. So women and diversity and ag, right, that topic that I think a lot of people glaze over. But I think it's something that should be addressed. And I think that it's something that you obviously have experienced firsthand. And coming into this industry, what did you experience? Like, what did you see? What were things that kind of stood out to you from the industry as a whole? Because I know that this is a big topic, and it should be probably a bigger topic. As you know, I will say what it is, agriculture is predominantly a male driven industry. And so let's chat about it. What are your thoughts? What have you seen?

Stacia Lewis

So I wouldn't say my experience has been negative, per se. However, sometimes times it's not that something happened. It's kind of the lack of it. So I'd say there is a lot of room for greater diversity in the field. Not only gender diversity, but also I mean, racial diversity. You know, the queer community in the in the industry. Something I was talking with some colleagues about recently is that we all got in this industry, because we want to make it better. Yeah, we ensure a safe and healthy future for our families. For a lot of us, our families don't all look the same, or different in a lot of different ways. And if we want to help everyone, it's going to take take everyone. Yeah. And I think that there's no better push for someone to do something than if they see someone like them doing that same thing. Yeah. And I don't see a lot of other queer people in the industry. And I've spoken with Some other colleagues from minority groups, and they also, you know, don't really see a lot of themselves. So I think that a reference to my friend graduating from glaze, we attended a session at cultivate in Ohio. And they asked the question, you know, it was a women's specific seminar, but how do you make it better? Like how do you improve relations in the industry and women's specific, and Gretchen says, Well, the way that I do it best is that I choose to work with women. And so I think that there just has to be a choice that is made for either people like me who don't see a lot of people like myself in the industry, or people who see a lot of themselves in the industry, making sure that they're seeking out connections with people who don't look like them and don't live like them. Because it's going to take everybody, and this has been my favorite thing I've ever done. And I want nothing more than to see, not only younger people like me, but people my age who I mean, I know a lot of people who don't really have a career or see what they're going to do. But CEA has really been that for me. And it's become that for me. And yeah, I want to see myself succeed. But I also want to see everybody succeed, because we don't all succeed until everyone does.