The Spark
My journey into cannabis intelligence wasn't academic—it was deeply personal. In 2012, I lost my best friend of 20 years to a heroin overdose. Seeking to understand how Southern California became a hub for "soccer mom drugs," I discovered the terrifying reality of the prescription-to-heroin pipeline.
During that research, I stumbled upon a side article titled "The Science of Growing Cannabis." I initially scoffed at the idea that watering a seed was "science"—until I read it. I realized then that cannabis was a complex biological challenge being held back by a mess of contradictory data.
The Pivot
After 19 years in retail management mastering forecasting, inventory, and federal compliance, a severe spinal injury in 2019 changed everything. Faced with a broken workers' comp system and the isolation of 2020, I taught myself the languages of the future.
With a two-week crash course in HTML, JS, and CSS, I built the first version of GrowApp. I didn't want another digital diary; I wanted a day-by-day precision tool. When told that accounting for every strain's unique period was impossible, I took that personally. My friend told me: "You're smart. Figure it out." So, I did.
The Hardware Logic
Multimodal Environmental Data
CI-Strains-Pro is the baseline, but the mission is bigger. I am currently building the definitive multimodal environment dataset—spanning fans, nutrients, and lighting hardware.
By connecting these environmental variables to high-fidelity imagery from a physical grow-op, I am training an **AI Gatekeeper**. This system will verify user-contributed images against known environmental logic to ensure only the highest-quality, verified data enters the ecosystem.
"No More Trust Me Bro"
The Technical Philosophy
I founded Loyal9 LLC to solve the industry's largest problem: The Data Gap. While public seed banks provide noise, I provide reconciled, breeder-anchored truth.
I've spent over 100 hours manually overseeing the Gemini Flash validation pipeline, ensuring that every row of data reflects logical reality. AI is my auditor; I am the architect.
// The Commitment
"I am taking the power of doubt away through total transparency. If the build isn't auditable, the data isn't reliable."
Follow the build and audit the intelligence.