Oregon’s former first lady Cylvia Hayes is broadening the focus of her consulting business yet again, this time in an attempt to land clients in the flourishing legal marijuana industry.
Hayes sent out the first issue of her new sustainable cannabis email newsletter on Saturday, promising to share “strategies, best practices and resources to help cannabis businesses make money in an environmentally sound and socially beneficial manner.”
Hayes served as an unpaid but official advisor to former Gov. John Kitzhaber on environmental and economic issues during his third term. Since Kitzhaber resigned in February 2015 amid an influence peddling scandal, Hayes has been working to rebuild her business and add new services, for example as a “strategic intervention coach” certified by self-help guru Tony Robbins.
It was the overlap between Hayes’ role in the governor’s office, and her consulting contracts with groups that wanted to influence Oregon’s environmental and economic policies, that sparked state and federal criminal investigations. Kitzhaber maintained he did nothing wrong and over the last six months, prosecutors decided to close both inquiries without filing charges. Earlier this month, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission decided to proceed with its investigation into whether the couple misused their public positions for personal gain.
Although Hayes has long focused on sustainability issues, it’s unclear how much experience she has in the cannabis industry. Nonetheless, she described her consulting firm 3E Strategies as “one of the forerunners empowering cannabis entrepreneurs in establishing themselves as effective social enterprises.” The former first lady could not be reached for comment Saturday evening regarding her new endeavor.
As Kitzhaber was running for a fourth term in 2014, Hayes acknowledged she lived at a planned marijuana grow site in a remote area of Washington nearly two decades ago. A retired real estate broker who visited the property after it went into foreclosure told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he found marijuana trimmings in a cabin on the land. But Hayes said in a statement the marijuana grow operation “never materialized” and she was not financially involved.
Hayes did not reference that experience in her newsletter.
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