Henderson levers engineering to create CBD company

LAFAYETTE — What do you do when you’re a combat veteran and land, after a post-military engineering education, in a company selling high-end gear to a cutting-edge fledgling industry?

You stop selling the gear — in this case CO2 extraction equipment for the hemp-derived CBD industry — and start making CBD, or cannabidiol, the second most prevalent active ingredient in cannabis, known as marijuana.  

“It was odd to me that marijuana was becoming so accepted,” said Craig Henderson, CEO of Extract Labs, a Lafayette-based company that extracts oil from hemp to create CBD for a proprietary line of CBD-infused products. “I thought not everyone wants to get high.”

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Henderson became interested in the medicinal application of cannabis at a time when the psychoactive component of TCH remained an obstacle. The government had banned all cannabis — though not all of its uses were psychoactive — until the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill made hemp and hemp-derived products like CBD flower and Delta-8 THC cartridges federally legal. 

From his research, Henderson knew that most CBD product offerings are not psychoactive and are not easy or comfortable to consume at the needed levels in order to get a psychoactive effect — marijuana is easier for those effects, he said. 

Henderson took his knowledge and research about the benefits of CBD — it helps with pain, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, something he witnessed first-hand while serving in Iraq — to start his own extraction company, simply calling it Extract Labs to reflect his work extracting CBD from hemp plant material. As a startup in 2016 and as hemp production began ramping up in Colorado, he had to work out of his garage as a side hustle. He had the vision, though, that someday CBD would turn into a niche industry.

“I was hoping to pick up a few customers. I never imagined what it could be today,” Henderson said. 

Henderson purchased some basic processing equipment and a small rotovap to isolate the CBD. Now, he operates his business with an Apeks Supercritical CO2 Extraction System, purchased from the company where he was the senior sales engineer from 2015 to 2016. While there, he had gained experience extracting CO2, as well as managed training and service on the extraction system, conducted cannabis-related research and development, and taught classes on advanced CO2 extraction and processing techniques. 

“Craig is a pioneer in the industry from the early days of industrial hemp extraction,” said Dylan Kinney, sales manager for Extract Labs. “His greater vision of creating products from his extractions to help people with various illnesses and ailments drove him to grow and expand with a hyper focus on quality throughout the entire process. This mission evolved over time to create some of the highest quality and innovative products on the market that we continue to produce today.”

Within three to four months of starting Extract Labs, Henderson had to find a building, not having the capacity to store the plant material he needed to extract CBD. In February 2017, he moved the company into a 2,500-square-foot building, soon outgrowing it and moving two more times before landing at the company’s current 26,000-square-foot Lafayette site. The company also expanded from two to a staff of 49 employees.

“I love helping people and the fact it is so profitable, we own our own building and the feedback we get from customers. They reach out directly to tell me how much it’s changed their lives,” Henderson said. “It’s amazing to be able to make money, have a cool company and be able to help people.”

Extract Labs started off solely as an extraction company. Henderson wanted to work with farmers to provide extraction services for their hemp crops, but soon found they weren’t interested. Initially, farmers didn’t realize all of the product offerings from their crops, he said.

“Instead of growing hemp for fiber and seed, most farmers today grow it for CBD oil,” Henderson said.

Henderson pivoted to CBD extraction to make it into product form — today, that looks like internal tinctures, external topicals, vape cartridges and pet CBD products, he said.

“When we started making the product, we realized we didn’t want it to just be a CBD company, we wanted it to be a cannabinoid company,” Henderson said.

Through his pivot, Henderson continued to work with farmers but not as he originally envisioned. He partners with those who grow high-end hemp for his own product production and is involved in each step from extraction to distillation, isolation, chromatography, formulation, packaging and shipping. His work is at all levels of his company, where he oversees research and development and process improvement on the extraction and production side, finding ways to make his products less expensive.

Henderson’s latest products are the result of research of the different versions of CBD, such as Immune Support GBGa CBDa Tincture — cannabis has 120 to 130 cannabinoids beyond CBD and THC. 

Other cannabinoids included in Extract Labs’ product development are CBG, CBN, CBC, CBT and CBL — Henderson is working with about a dozen of them to produce tinctures, topicals and vapes. He aims to make as many different products as possible with the cannabinoids to extract their benefits. His customers are saying that anxiety is their top concern for treatment, he said.

“A lot of companies are CBD companies only,” Henderson said. “Today, we have the most diverse product line on the market.”

Oftentimes a few months after Extract Labs releases a product, the company’s competitors also will start launching the same product, Henderson said. 

“Throughout Extract Labs’ life, Craig has taken the path less traveled of organic growth,” Kinney said. “A lot of other companies sold high and took investors’ money when the market was booming back in 2017 and 2018 … This plan led to many of these same companies to go under as the overproduction of industrial hemp led to a market crash. Meanwhile, because Extract Labs has been privately owned and Craig has only invested his own money back into the company, we have been growing at a steady rate since the early stages. As time goes on, we have continued to bring in high level talent, invested in better equipment, and studied market trends and research to continue making the best products available.”

Henderson plans to continue expanding Extract Labs, innovating and identifying new cannabinoids and their medical benefits. He wants to turn his $10 million to $15 million company into a $100-200 million one, he said. 

“His passion is what’s made it such a great company,” said Grant Rogers, director of marketing for Extract Labs, adding that Henderson also is a “great leader.” “He is never the type to ask you to do something that he wouldn’t do himself. … He’s not just sitting there telling you what to do, he’s doing it with you.” 

Henderson fosters a sense of confidence where no problem is unsolvable, said Logan Cline, director of analytical development for Extract Labs

“Aside from being passionate, Craig is a smart businessman and his engineering background gives him a unique edge,” Cline said. “He’s multifaceted, which allows him to make great decisions from a business standpoint but also have great insight from a scientific standpoint. … He’s not a CEO who just sits back, Craig is here every day as our teammate and always lends an insightful ear when needed.”

Henderson earned a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Louisville in Kentucky in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Army for nearly 10 years, including as an infantryman and team leader with 1 Battalion 27th Infantry during Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2002 to 2006. He was twice nominated for a Bronze Star and received an Army Commendation Medal, or ARCOM, with Valor award while serving in Iraq. 

“It would be nice if we were the next Pfizer and doctors would take us more seriously,” Henderson said.