Functional Remedies’ Tim Gordon: Hemp Trailblazer
By Steven Hoffman
From seed to shelf, Tim Gordon has been at the forefront of the hemp and cannabis industry since well before it was legal. From a few narrow escapes with the law in the 1990s to serving today as Chief Science Officer for Functional Remedies and its full spectrum hemp oil brand Synchronicity™, it’s been a long and winding road for the Colorado-based industrial hemp trailblazer.
“I began growing cannabis in the 1990s and quickly became a passionate student and advocate of the plant. I watched friends suffering from serious illnesses and they needed relief with the cannabis I was giving them. I would risk everything to help these people feel better. This is what still drives me today. Only 25 years ago, I was deemed a criminal for growing cannabis; now I’m invited to speak around the world about its benefits,” Gordon said.
Tim’s responsibilities as Chief Science Officer for Functional Remedies include scientific, technological and research operations, agronomic and genetic research, trial and clinical work, advising on scientific matters, serving as a company spokesperson, and more. Tim’s involvement in the fully integrated company ranges from overseeing planning, planting and harvesting at the company’s organic hemp farm in southern Colorado to helping formulate the Synchronicity line of products.
The company stands behind its proprietary “LipidTrans™ Infusion Process” as opposed to more widely used extraction methods. According to Gordon, hand-pressed whole hemp plants are infused with organic coconut oil, allowing for maximum absorption of the full spectrum hemp oil in Synchronicity products. “We are the fresh-squeezed orange juice of hemp oil while all the others are from concentrate,” Gordon teases.
Products include tinctures, capsules and topicals targeted to aid sleep, anxiety, chronic pain and muscle recovery. Synchronicity products are third-party tested ensuring FDA compliance, GMP certified, NSF certified and Kosher, said Gordon. Plus, working with certifier NSF and its QAI organic certification division, he anticipates Synchronicity products will receive USDA organic certification in 2021, “from farm to process to products,” he said.
“How I think about cannabis in general is that if you are creating an optimal environment to work in synchronicity with the plant, working with the soil rhizosphere – because of the plant’s relationship with us – it’s all connected from the soil to the plant to the oil to us,” mused Gordon.
“As such, we created a brand centric to our bodies and its relationship to the plant, and we transitioned our brand name from Functional Remedies to Synchronicity to reflect that.” Gordon noted that the company’s parent name remains Functional Remedies.
“Response from the packaging to the products has been absolutely amazing, given that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic,” Gordon noted. “We’ve been able to keep our employees through this – we’re knocking on doors and folks are letting us in. ”
Gordon, who in 2006 helped launch Front Range NORML to legalize marijuana, originally served in 2014 as CEO of CBD Rx (the predecessor to Functional Remedies) when it became the first hemp farm in the U.S. to receive USDA organic certification. He currently serves on the boards of the Hemp Industries Association, U.S. Hemp Growers Association, the American Herbal Products Association’s Cannabis Committee, and the Executive Committee of CHAMP (the Colorado Hemp Advancement Management Plan).
In addition to his work with Functional Remedies, Gordon is excited about his involvement in Impello Biosciences, a Fort Collins, CO-based startup that has formulated patent-pending bio-stimulant fertilizers and soil amendments “unique to the cannabis industry,” he said.
“Cannabis produces multiple different bacteria in the plant’s microbiome,” Gordon explained. Working with plant biologist Michael Key, “we were able to sequence this microbiome in the plant’s root system to identify three specific bacteria that play major roles in the plant’s metabolic uptake,” Gordon said. “Impello products work great outdoors in soil, and indoors in any medium. Essentially, we are trying to create a complete ecosystem in the cannabis plant’s rhizosphere,” he added.
According to Tim Gordon, Impello’s integrated solutions and next-generation technology, ranging from microorganisms to other bioactive compounds, help farmers increase the quality and yield of their harvest in a more sustainable way. “With biostimulant technology, we’re reinvigorating soils, plants, farmers, and consumers with a powerful tool: the force of nature,” he said.