Mary Babitz
CEO of Cascade Botanicals
Hillsboro, Oregon
Most purchasers of vacuum ovens fall into two vastly different categories of people. One comes from the buttoned-down, conservative worlds like aerospace and pharmaceuticals, having used vacuum ovens for decades.
In stark contrast, the other regular customers are cannabis extraction artists — newcomers to the use of vacuum ovens, but quickly becoming a sizeable sector of the business.
Mary Babitz, CEO of Cascade TEK, recalls those early interactions between her company and the cannabis industry. She said Cascade TEK started receiving calls a few years ago from random people looking to buy vacuum ovens.
When the company pushed for more details to line customers up with the right product, the caller would abruptly hang up the phone. This went on for about six months before one brave soul finally showed up knowing exactly what he wanted, Babitz said.
When the man showed up to purchase the item, he paid entirely in cash “that smelled like beautiful flowers,” Babitz said. “And I thought, ‘Okay, I get it now.’”
Cascade TEK had been selling vacuum ovens to the aerospace and technology sectors since 1992, but its recent foray into the cannabis market led the company to create a separate brand, Cascade Botanicals, specifically for botanical extractions. The ovens and various products are exactly the same, but each has a separate website and separate banking details.
“It’s really interesting to see a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering sitting in our shop next to an extraction artist and they’re both buying the same product,” Babitz said.
Babitz has seen the company’s growth from the inside, calling her rise in the company’s ranks “an American small business success story.”
Babitz, who has a degree in business with a focus on marketing, was the second employee hired by the company “and just worked my tail off” to help build the company.
When founder Doug Barrett died, he already had a succession plan in place to make Babitz the CEO.
Babitz said she was extremely fortunate to be working for a company that cared so much about its employees and was willing to give her a shot at running the business. Babitz added that the company has always taken care of its employees — paying 100% of their health insurance, contributing to 401k retirement accounts, etc. — which has made it easier to keep a solid team in place.
“We do things as a small manufacturing company that are harder and harder to find,” Babitz said.
Barrett also instilled a sales-driven attitude into the company, Babitz said.
“People aren’t buying an oven. They’re buying a solution,” she said. “Every customer we interact with has a problem we’re going to try to solve for them, with either the best oven, or the best gadgets we for that problem.”
While the company employs a fair amount of engineers, Babitz said an engineering degree is not necessarily a requirement. What she’s really looking for is a “MacGyver,” referring to the television character who regularly concocted outrageous tools out of household supplies.
“I want to be able to give you duct tape and lint and let’s make a rocket ship,” she said.
While Cascade TEK’s original clientele come from traditionally conservative industries, the debate about jumping into the more controversial marijuana business was a fairly short conversation.
Babitz said there hasn’t been an emerging market quite like the cannabis space, at least in her lifetime.
Yes, there are obstacles, she admitted. “But the harder it is to do, the reward is that much greater,” she said.