Elizabeth AguirreElizabeth Aguirre was working as a general manager for a Bay Area coffee shop when her district manager proposed a move into cannabis retail.
“He explained to me that it’s basically a blank canvas; the store hadn’t opened yet and it was just a license,” Aguirre says. “I was actually waiting to hear back from law schools that I applied to but ultimately, I love to build stores and teams, so I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
Aguirre joined the skeleton crew of Velvet as a general manager in February 2020. Today, she is the company’s director of operations, overseeing the multi-award-winning chain’s four stores and helping guide the company through California’s brutal cannabis industry.
Velvet has been named as one of the best cannabis companies to work for by Cannabis Business Times for four consecutive years. The retailer’s location in Martinez, where Aguirre helped launch the company, was voted as the best cannabis dispensary in the region by readers of the East Bay Times for five consecutive years and was just named best dispensary by the Martinez Chamber of Commerce for a second consecutive year.
Aguirre attributes the awards to her team.
“I’m very proud that the owners have allowed me to give a lot of input on the stores,” she says. “I always hire based on customer experience. A lot of my team, they’re servers, they’re from the makeup industry, hospitality. If customer service is natural, then I welcome that employee. Cannabis we can teach you.”
In hindsight, Aquirre is incredibly thankful she stayed in hospitality and equally happy to avoid decades of debt from law school.
“I would have graduated last year,” she says, “I’d barely be starting to pay my tuition.”