OLD GUARD
'17
Connoisseur Cup
First Place
Concentrates recognition
Meet the operator
Alex
Marzec
Cannabis craft taught me how to see the plant. Licensed operations taught me how to build systems around it.
More than two decades across cultivation, extraction, manufacturing, facility commissioning, quality, and compliance now inform every Old Guard recommendation.
The recommendation has to work on the floor, not just in the presentation.
Operator before advisor
The work started with the plant, long before it came with a license number. Fifteen years of hands-on hash-making and extraction craft built the sensory judgment, material discipline, and respect for process that still anchor the practice today.
The licensed-market chapter added another decade of responsibility: directing cultivation, extraction, post-harvest, manufacturing, packaging, quality systems, facility buildouts, and commercialization at scale. That meant balancing craft with throughput, safety, documentation, budgets, and the realities of the people expected to execute the plan.
Old Guard exists to bring both sides of that experience to operators who need answers they can defend to a regulator, an investor, and the team working the floor.
Credentials
Training, licenses & recognition
Formal credentials support the work. Hands-on operating experience is what makes them useful.
Connoisseur Cup
609
EPA Section 609
Technician
Refrigerant handling certification
NY
Category 24 & 1A
Pesticide Credentials
Private applicator and technician
GAP
Cornell CALS
GAP Certification
Good Agricultural Practices
Field record
Scale without the résumé
The operating record matters. Former employer names do not.
44,000 sq ft
Indoor single-, dual-, and triple-tier cultivation canopy directed in licensed operations.
15,000+
Plants under cultivation management at peak, supported by repeatable room and harvest planning.
$16M+
Cultivation, extraction, and manufacturing infrastructure directed during an 18-month expansion window.
200+ SKUs
Products commercialized across flower, concentrates, vapes, pre-rolls, and infused categories.
Working standard
What clients should expect
01
Evidence before opinion
Recommendations begin with the facility, the records, the constraints, and the actual material flow—not a generic playbook.
02
Execution over theater
A compliant plan is only useful if the available team, budget, and operating rhythm can sustain it after the advisor leaves.
03
Craft with accountability
Product quality, worker safety, documentation, and financial responsibility are treated as one operating system.
Bring the hard problem