Dallas Zimmerman, Founder of River Bend Wellness – Interview Series

One of the most crucial parts of any cannabis operation is ensuring that capable professionals are at the helm of every role. From cultivation and harvesting to the many departments under the “post-harvest process” umbrella—as well as the numerous specialties required on the retail side—staffing and onboarding involve many vital decisions. If these decisions are made haphazardly or employees are not the right fit, issues can quickly compound, especially in a highly regulated industry like cannabis. Therefore, operations must emphasize hiring ideal candidates and ensuring a thorough onboarding process across all areas.

For a deeper look into effective hiring and onboarding strategies in the cannabis industry, mycannabis.com spoke with Dallas Zimmerman, Founder of River Bend Wellness.

How have your studies in Project Management at St. Louis Community College become useful throughout your many duties and roles both within the cannabis industry and outside of it as well?

My studies in Project Management gave me more structure around a lot of things I was already learning through experience. A big part of my career has been taking something that is unorganized and figuring out how to make it work better. Hiring, training, SOPs, operations, projects, whatever it may be.

It taught me to look at the whole process. What needs to happen first? Who owns what? Where can it get held up? How do we know if it is actually working? I still use that same way of thinking today with River Bend Wellness. Find the real problem, build a clear plan, assign responsibility, and focus on the result.

How did working as a Floor Supervisor at Supo’s Spaghetteria strengthen your skills in both customer service and vendor relations at the same time?

Working at Sugo’s taught me a lot about customer service, communication, and managing relationships.

Customers and vendors really need a lot of the same things. Clear communication, realistic expectations, and quick problem solving when something goes wrong.

One of the biggest things I learned was to communicate early. If something is going to be late, missing, or different than expected, say it upfront. Most people are easier to work with when they are not surprised.

As a Floor Supervisor, I also had to keep the team organized, solve problems quickly, and understand what was happening behind the scenes. That taught me pretty early that a good customer experience depends on the whole operation working together.

What professionally interested you in entering the Missouri cannabis industry? What had your personal or professional experience with cannabis been prior to that?

I came into cannabis from the legacy market, and once I had my son, I knew I wanted to move into something legitimate and build a real career.

Missouri medical cannabis was still very new, so there was a lot of opportunity.

Once I got into the legal industry, I realized pretty quickly that a lot of my skills transferred over. Leadership, customer service, training, organization, problem solving, and managing people all still mattered.

I was already passionate about the plant, but I also wanted to help change the perception around cannabis and around people who came from the legacy market. For me, it was really the right mix of timing, opportunity, and passion.

What inspired you to create River Bend Wellness? How did you wish to further assist cannabis businesses with this company?

River Bend Wellness came from a mix of my experience and the network I had already built in cannabis.

I took a W2 role that had me traveling and talking with licensed operators, so I got to see how different businesses were operating and what problems kept coming up. I realized pretty quickly there was a lane for me.

I had experience in hiring, training, HR, compliance, operations, and customer service. Business development and networking also came naturally to me.

Because I have such a wide range of experience, I can stay lean and help operators with more than one area instead of needing a different person for every problem. That can save money in the long run and let me make a bigger impact across the business.

That is really why I started River Bend Wellness. I wanted to use my experience and network to help more than one company and be someone operators could call when they needed help getting something done.

Based on the operational assessments and audits that River Bend Wellness does, what are some common issues or inefficiencies that cannabis operators face? Do certain departments in a cannabis business more of those issues than others?

A lot of the issues I see come down to unclear processes, poor communication, or nobody really owning the problem.

Hiring is one example. A company can have plenty of applicants and still waste a ton of manager time sorting through people who are not a fit.

Interviews may be inconsistent. Onboarding may be unclear. Sometimes companies also wait until they are already short staffed before they start hiring.

But the problem is not always hiring.

Sometimes it is training. Sometimes it is management. Sometimes it is accountability. Sometimes the process itself is the problem.

Different departments feel those issues differently. Retail feels them fast because staffing and execution affect the customer experience. Cultivation and manufacturing may feel them more through consistency, technical work, inventory, and compliance.

Being close to operators has also put me around growth opportunities like expansion, partnerships, license sales, and acquisitions.

For me, the goal is always to figure out what is actually holding the business back first, then solve the right problem.

With regulatory compliance in particular, what are the most common pitfalls that cannabis operators face? How do those regulatory pitfalls change across different regions of Missouri or other state markets that you’ve worked with?

One of the biggest compliance problems I see is inconsistency.

You can have a great SOP on paper, but if managers train people differently or employees are not following the same process, that creates risk fast.

Inventory is a big one too. Receiving, tracking, transfers, storage, and documentation all have to be handled correctly.

That is why I look at compliance first when building a process. Before I worry about making something faster or easier, I want to know it is compliant.

I also do not think compliance should live with one manager or one department. Everyone should understand the rules that apply to their role and why they matter.

The exact rules may change from market to market, but my approach really does not.

Understand the rules. Train the team. Build the process. Make sure people actually follow it.

From your experience hiring and onboarding for cannabis businesses, what universally beneficial qualities do you look for in potential cannabis employees? How do those qualities change depending on the department they want to work in?

The first thing I look for is attitude.

I am a big believer that I can teach someone a process or help them build a skill.

It is a lot harder to teach someone to care, communicate, take ownership, or show up with the right mindset.

So I look for people who are reliable, coachable, accountable, organized, and willing to learn. From there, it depends on the role. In retail, communication and customer service matter more. In cultivation, consistency, work ethic, and following process are important. Manufacturing and inventory require a lot of attention to detail.

For leadership roles, I want someone who can set expectations, hold people accountable, make decisions, and solve problems without everything having to go back to ownership.

The technical skills change by role, but the foundation is usually the same. Give me someone with the right attitude who wants to learn, and I can work with that.

Because I used to work in cannabis packaging and post-harvest myself, I wanted to ask about the very strict cGMP standards. Why would it be helpful for cannabis manufacturing operations to become GMP certified?

For me, GMP comes back to consistency, quality, and control.

Cannabis manufacturing has a lot of places where things can go wrong. Sanitation, handling, storage, documentation, equipment, quality control, all of it has to work together.

A strong GMP system creates clear standards, trains people the right way, and helps make sure the same process is followed every time. It also helps with traceability. If something goes wrong, you need to be able to go back and figure out exactly what happened. I also think there is value in getting ahead of where the industry may go.

We do not know exactly what federal reform will look like, but stronger quality and manufacturing standards could become more important. I would rather build those habits into the operation now than try to completely change everything later.

To me, GMP is not just about a certification. It is about creating a culture where quality, consistency, cleanliness, documentation, and compliance are just how things are done.

What are some examples of either unnecessary cannabis regulations or other regulations that are very costly for the cannabis businesses themselves? Why are those regulations in place in the first place?

Two of the biggest areas I see vary from market to market are packaging and inventory. Both are necessary, but they create different problems.

Packaging is over restrictive in my opinion. I understand why the rules exist, especially around consumer safety, but in some markets cannabis packaging can be more restrictive than alcohol or other legal products.

Packaging is also part of cannabis culture. The branding, artwork, and creativity matter.

If we want cannabis to be treated more like other legal products, I think there has to be room for that too. Inventory tends to be the more costly issue. Inventory is literally your money.

If it is not tracked correctly, you can lose product, create major operational problems, and open the business up to fines or much bigger compliance issues. That is why inventory control matters so much. It affects both the money side of the business and the compliance side.

Both areas are important. The challenge is creating rules that protect the consumer and the license without making normal business operations harder than they need to be.

What are some notable plans for the future for River Bend Wellness? How do you envision federal rescheduling or another major federal cannabis reform changing the auditing services River Bend Wellness offers?

The biggest plan for River Bend Wellness is to keep building around where I can create the most value for operators. That includes hiring and recruiting, but it is bigger than that.

Business development, partnerships, expansion, operations, people, systems, and helping companies figure out what is actually holding growth back. I also think operational excellence is going to matter more as the industry matures and margins get tighter.

Operators are going to have less room for waste, weak systems, poor training, or inconsistent execution. As far as federal reform, I do not know exactly what the requirements will look like.

But I do think stronger expectations around quality, documentation, manufacturing, compliance, and consistency are likely to become more important.

My goal with River Bend Wellness is to help operators find the gaps early, build stronger systems, and be better prepared before outside pressure forces them to change.

Thank you for joining us, Dallas! For more information on River Bend Wellness and its services, please visit its LinkedIn page.