Jim Stingl Couple left Wisconsin to work in pot business in Colorado.
After a hard day at work, Beth and Steve Fromm need to lather baby oil and Dawn dishwashing soap on their skin to get rid of the sticky marijuana residue.
“I have enough weed on the floor mats of my Subaru to probably get arrested in Menomonee Falls. We’re just covered in it by the end of the day,” Steve told me.
He mentioned Menomonee Falls because that’s where he and his wife lived until packing up in 2016 and moving to Pueblo, Colorado.
These grandparents found work out there in the legal and lucrative marijuana industry, which employs an estimated 26,000 people in Colorado and is seeing annual sales of $1.5 billion.
Beth, 60, and Steve, 61, log eight hours or more each weekday at a place called Bloom County not far from their home. About 30 people work at the indoor growing facility.
“It’s a marijuana factory,” Steve said in a
phone interview. “It’s production work. We punch a time clock and we come in and we have departments. Tomorrow morning, we’re harvesting about 250 to 300 plants.”
Steve is a trimmer. Wielding a razorsharp pruner, he snips off unwanted stems and leaves from marijuana buds, making them pretty for consumers shopping at Colorado dispensaries selling weed to adults for medicine and recreation.
Beth does many jobs, starting with taking young plants that have sprouted in a hydroponic cloner and planting them in pots for 20 weeks until they’re ready for harvest. She also runs a machine that rolls joints, and she even delivers product to dispensaries that pay in cash.
Their co-workers include former law enforcement officers and a prosecutor, a retired doctor and a former grocery store owner. One of Steve’s fellow trimmers is a guy in his 50s from Wisconsin Rapids.
“A lot of us are senior citizens,” Beth said. “These young people come into this business and they want to do everything and they think they know everything. And it’s disappointing because it’s just another job. We’re thrilled because we’re done looking for a career. We’re just filling out our days doing something we like.”
The facility is super secure, the couple said, with cameras everywhere, locked entrances and even barbed wire. About 6,000 plants of 30 different strains are growing inside at any given time. Bloom County boasts that it’s been producing high-end premium cannabis since 2008.
I first met Steve and Beth and wrote about them in 2014. Steve’s first e-book in the erotic fiction genre had just come out under his shadowy pen name, J.F. Silver. “Porn on paper,” is the playful description used by Beth, who encouraged Steve to write and gave him plot ideas.
Steve is writing again in Colorado and will soon finish his sixth sexy book. This hasn’t paid as much as he had hoped, but he enjoys it as a hobby and a way of reinvigorating his marriage, which has lasted 41 years as of Sunday.
The two also worked together cleaning houses around Milwaukee. They tried without success to get that business going again in Pueblo.
So they waded into the world of weed instead. The couple’s grown kids haven’t been entirely enthused about their parents’ job choices, but that’s sometimes the way it goes.
Someone has to satisfy America’s growing demand for high-quality and highly regulated marijuana. Beth and Steve like going to work every day, and they get paid about $12 an hour.
A license is required for this occupation, and both passed extensive background checks. They laughed when I asked if they needed to take a drug test to work at a pot plant. They did not.
Not everyone working at Bloom County uses the drug themselves, even though there are occasional free samples given to employees.
“A lot of people don’t indulge. We do,” Steve said.
He and Beth talk up marijuana as a pain reliever, anxiety calmer and sleep aid. Steve even credits it with sparking his creativity as a writer.
So, let’s see. The Fromms have sex and drugs covered. How about rock ‘n’ roll?
Funny I should ask, Steve said. On a recent trip back to Wisconsin, he picked up the drum set he left behind in the move. It might be time to put a band together.
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook .com/ Journalist. Jim. Stingl