Rowshan Reordan, Green Leaf Labs Founder and CEO: “Our goal is to educate our clients, consumers and regulators on the importance of accurate quality control testing for a robust and safe cannabis industry”

It is an undeniable fact that brand loyalty plays a leading role in a business’s success. It applies to every product we use; from the food we buy to the cars we drive and the clothes we choose to wear; it is also relevant to the cannabis products we use. The recreational cannabis industry is emerging across the nation. As it continues to develop, consumers are on the lookout for brands they can trust to produce the products they enjoy. A key component of brand loyalty is trusting the potency of the product and that it is free of pesticides, microbial, heavy metals and more.

Regulated cannabis testing is pivotal to consumer safety making it a necessary component for a safe and successful cannabis market. Globally there are various companies that specialize in cannabis quality testing, but Green Leaf Lab stands out from the rest. Green Leaf Lab is the nation’s first accredited woman-owned laboratory that has been serving the cannabis industry since 2011. At Green Leaf Lab, they test cannabis for potency, pesticides, microbials, mycotoxins, heavy metals, residual solvents, vitamin E Acetate, terpenes, Hops Latent Viroid, and more. Green Leaf Lab is the first cannabis analytical laboratory to be accredited and licensed by a state agency and has performed complex and regulated testing in the cannabis industry since 2016. The company understands regulated testing and the complexities associated with it.

Meet the leader behind the success of Green Leaf Lab

Rowshan Reordan, Founder and CEO of Green Leaf Labs, is not only changing the way things are done, but transforming the world for the better. She has made this mission her career, and it all began because of her unshakable humanitarianism and passion for helping people after experiencing profound adversary at a young, impressionable age. Rowshan dropped out of high school at age 15 and left home shortly after age 17. She traveled throughout North and Central America and experienced and witnessed sexism, racism, human rights atrocities, socio-economic discrimination, and mass injustices in the legal system. Justice became her foundation as a professional and entrepreneur. Rowshan worked her way through school, receiving a Juris doctorate degree in law and a master’s degree in political science with a concentration in human rights. With legal experience and roots in the cannabis community, she was able to connect social equity, justice, and healing into one universal area. Rowshan began growing medical cannabis when a friend of hers battling HIV struggled with access to safe clean cannabis. At this time, there was no state or federally regulated testing process for the safe consumption of cannabis. This put her friend’s health further at risk. Ensuring cannabis was free of pesticides and other harmful contaminants, could not be done. This needed to be changed, and in doing so, Rowshan discovered that helping a friend in need was just the beginning. What started as a passion to help a friend, led to Rowshan opening the nation’s first woman-owned analytical cannabis testing laboratory.

Woman Transforming the Cannabis Industry

Rowshan’s journey in opening a cannabis testing laboratory came with its fair share of obstacles, such as legalization or, more importantly, lack thereof. The status of cannabis as “illegal” created a void in government regulations. Rowshan saw Colorado and Washington legalize recreational cannabis without product safety testing standards. She knew that the professionalism and successful growth of the new industry required consumer safety standards. Rowshan’s thirst for justice enabled her to see an opportunity for Oregon to become a leader and an example for other states to follow. Rowshan worked closely with state regulators and was instrumental in assisting Oregon in crafting quality control rules that protected consumer safety in this transitioning industry. Those quality control rules became the baseline for other states to follow.

While legalization and lack of regulation posed unique problems for Rowshan’s efforts, one problem that added additional complexities was her gender. It is difficult enough to open the first state-accredited cannabis analytical testing laboratory, but it is even more challenging to be the first woman-owned one. Women in the United States continue to battle gender inequality. Empowering women is part of the very fabric of who Rowshan Reordan is, both as a working professional and a humanitarian. Her efforts outside of the organization play a profound part in the good she brings to the cannabis industry. Since the inception of Green Leaf Labs in 2011, Rowshan continues to blaze trails, overcoming obstacles that stood in her way as a woman Founder and CEO of such a vital industry.

Achieving Success

Every cannabis and hemp CBD product manufacturer, supplier, or distributor who utilizes the services of Green Leaf Labs not only supports a woman-owned business but also helps further Rowshan’s socially equitable goals and success as a female entrepreneur. From creating policy around quality control and consumer safety to opening an analytical laboratory, Rowshan set the standard for cannabis testing by applying for both NELAC TNI and ISO 17025 accreditations, the first cannabis lab in the state to ever do so. These accreditations certify the analytical testing and calibration laboratory’s competencies, methodologies, and practices. These accreditations indicate that Rowshan and the team at Green Leaf Labs utilize systems and processes that meet scientific criteria to perform validated and accurate testing. With the hard work of Rowshan and her team, Green Leaf Lab achieved accreditation in 2016, making them the first woman-owned analytical cannabis and hemp testing laboratory licensed and accredited by a government organization. These accreditations have had a positive ripple effect on the industry, bringing more recognition to Rowshan’s mission of the safe consumption of cannabis, propelling her to open a second analytical laboratory in California in 2019. Rowshan Reordan can inspire up-and-coming women professionals to never let any gender stereotype stand in their way, as she now heads up the first woman-owned and accredited analytical testing laboratory. This ripple effect continues to transform the industry from the inside out.

Always Expanding

Having expanded outside of Oregon to California, and the nation with her hemp certification program, Rowshan Reordan has taken her passions for social equity and focused on collaboration and teamwork with all genders, races, and walks of life. A bigger business brings more opportunities to everyone while creating a safe and healthy world. Rowshan’s care for humanity is what really drives her. Knowing how many obstacles she and all women face as business professionals, CEOs, or aspiring entrepreneurs looking to impact the world, Rowshan focuses on supporting diversity and workplace equity at Green Leaf Labs. To prepare future generations, Rowshan also advocates for better business education efforts for women of all ethnicities to give them opportunities to succeed with fewer barriers to break down. She knows that no matter if you are a dropout, runaway, homeless, or facing any inequity and injustice in life, you can rise above the biases and bring remarkable value to the world. She wants all women and minorities to never lose sight of their ultimate vision and never forget how they have overcome obstacles to become who they are today. Rowshan Reordan is a remarkable woman who quite literally created an industry-specific standard designed exclusively around helping keep people safe and legitimizing an industry. Success stories in any business are hard to come by, but Rowshan Reordan’s profound career and selfless care for her colleagues, employees, and humanity give us the vision that finding success is not only key but essential for furthering the mission of equality and justice.

“We believe in continuing the advancement of cannabis and hemp science to ensure transparency in quality control systems.”