Tom Ulanowski, Nextleaf Labs Ltd | BC

Tom Ulanowski is President of Nextleaf Labs Ltd, a Coquitlam based, BC company that provides cannabis extraction solutions and toll-processing services to the legal cannabis industry. Tom is a Chartered Chemist (ACPO), and holds an HBSc Degree in Analytical Chemistry & Environmental Monitoring from the University of Toronto, as well as a MSc Degree in Biogeochemistry from the University of Western Ontario.

Tom is the former Quality Assurance Manager, Quality Assurance Person (QAP), and Qualified Person in Charge (QPIC) at Canna Farms Ltd., a Health Canada Licensed Producer of award-winning craft cannabis, based in Hope, BC. At Canna Farms, Tom ensured that all of the company’s dried cannabis and cannabis oil products were produced under current Good Production/Manufacturing Practices (cGPP/GMP). Tom was also intimately involved in day-to-day production/manufacturing activities at Canna Farms, as well as research and product development, regulatory liaison, licensing/permitting, building design, security, IT, and marketing. Since joining Canna Farms in 2015, Tom has quality-assured hundreds of batches of cannabis, while helping the company to obtain multiple production and sales licences, expand operations, win national industry awards, and increase output ten-fold via expansions, improvements to current practices, and the development of new processes and products. In 2018, Tom led the effort to manufacture, license, and market “Canna Kief”, making Canna Farms the first Licensed Producer in Canada to sell a concentrated form of cannabis.

Tom is an advocate of a science-based approach to cannabis cultivation, and encourages the use of critical thinking and healthy skepticism. He has been integral in developing Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s (KPU’s) Plant Production & Facility Management course, and has taught hundreds of students around the world on cannabis production and interpretation of national and international regulations. Prior to his work with the cannabis plant, Tom was managing an environmental research laboratory at the Biotron Institute for Experimental Climate Change Research at the University of Western Ontario and conducting multidisciplinary scientific research in northern Canada.