[[{“value”:”Want to pursue adifferent kind of higher education?
Through GateWay Community College, Valley residents who want to boost their weed knowledge — and job prospects — can do just that. The college offers several online programs to help people cultivate skills and break into the cannabis industry.
Since October, GateWay has partnered with cannabis training company Green Flower to offer four certificate programs. The classes are taught online and span nine weeks to six months. They cost between $750 and $1,950 per course. Students can choose between programs that set them up for jobs in retail as budtenders in dispensaries or as growers in cultivation plants, for a role in the manufacturing sector or even for creating their own cannabis business.
“People can kind of choose their own adventure,” said Max Simon, president and CEO of Green Flower.
Having a certification typically isn’t necessary for jobs in the cannabis industry. Some states require dispensary budtenders to go through a certification process, but Arizona does not. However, while the Arizona weed industry has ballooned since recreational weed use was legalized in 2020, the cannabis job market has tightened.
Open budtender or grower positions used to be plentiful at dispensaries or cultivate plants. Now, Simon said, data shows cannabis-related job listings receive between 30 to 70 applicants per job. With so much competition, Simon hopes GateWay’s certifications will help applicants “stand out more” and have their “employers take them exponentially more seriously.”
Maureen Hannon, a project manager at GateWay Community College who oversees its cannabis programs, said completing the certification helps job applicants be taken more seriously by cannabis industry employers.
“(It) shows the dispensary managers and owners the real interest that an applicant might have,” she said.
The cannabis industry is a highly regulated and complicated one, with laws that vary from state to state. GateWay’s courses cover the legal requirements to work in the nascent industry but also much more. The specific curriculum varies by program, Hannon said, but students generally are taught the history and biology of the plant, product knowledge (including delivery methods and the effect of various strains), and health, safety and security measures.
Since Green Flower partnered with GateWay in October, roughly 85 students have taken a cannabis certificate class, which GateWay provides through its noncredit workforce development program. The school is entering its first full year of conducting Green Flower cannabis classes, though it’s offered other weed-focused courses since 2020.
Green Flower, which has conducted cannabis classes through colleges and universities for nearly 10 years, offers similar courses online at the University of Arizona.
Other schools in the Maricopa Community Colleges system provide more traditional cannabis-related business and fundamentals classes. These classes include CAN 101: Introduction to Cannabis Industry and CAN 105: Accounting, Finance and Funding in the Cannabis Industry.
“}]] The cannabis job market is tight. GateWay Community College offers four certificate courses to help applicants stand out. Read More
