Faculty Member at Department of Agriculture & Resource Economics at NC State University
Dr. Coit, JD, LLM is a faculty member in the Department of Agriculture & Resource Economics at NC State University. Her teaching and research is in food, agriculture and hemp law. She is a part of the Extension hemp team at NC State.

Extension Horticulture Specialist and SARE Co-Coordinator at the Cooperative Extension Program of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Dr. Gu’s areas of training and expertise include vegetable and small fruit production, vegetable grafting, season extension with low and high tunnels, plant tissue culture, and plant breeding. He supervises graduate students and teaches courses in the Urban and Community Agriculture Program. Dr. Gu’s research goal is to increase on-farm profitability and the environment stewardship of small, limited-resource farmers in North Carolina. With his audience in mind, Dr. Gu’s current research and extension focus is on season extension techniques, both organic and conventional, for vegetable and small fruit production. He also works on industrial hemp, an emerging crop of importance for North Carolina.

Principal of Kight Law Office, PC
Mr. Kight is the principal of Kight Law Office PC, which represents businesses in the cannabis industry, including hemp and CBD, throughout the USA and the world. Mr. Kight edits the popular Kight On Cannabis law blog and wrote Cannabis Business Law-What You Need to Know, a cannabis law primer for business executives published by Aspatore Books. He speaks at national cannabis conferences, drafts cannabis legislation, and is regularly quoted on cannabis matters in the media, including Time, Business Insider, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Kight was recently named a “Top 30 Powerful Cannabis Litigator” by MG Magazine and one of the “100 People You Should Know” by Hemp Connoisseur Magazine. He testified at the recent FDA public hearing on cannabis. He writes and sits on the advisory board for the American Journal of Medical Cannabis, a peer reviewed publication. Mr. Kight believes strongly in personal and medical cannabis use for many reasons, including that it helped him during chemotherapy treatments for cancer. He is an attorney advocate for NORML, and a member of the International Cannabis Bar Association, the National Cannabis Industry Association, the Hemp Industries Association, the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Association, and the South Carolina Hemp Farmers Association. Mr. Kight is married to his elementary school sweetheart, Ashley, who is also his office manager. They raised five children. Rod plays guitar in a rock band. You may contact him by email (rod@cannabusiness.law) or phone (828-255-9881).

Co-Owner of Celestial Hemp
Mr. Rife is the co-founder of Celestial Hemp Company. He grew up gardening and practicing sustainable land management and developed a love for natural and environmental sciences. Mr. Rife spent time at the University of Tennessee studying engineering. In early 2018, he started growing hemp through North Carolina’s Pilot Program and developing Celestial Hemp’s array of full- spectrum hemp extract products. Mr. Rife has said, “hemp needs to be the most produced crop in the world to sustain our planet and humanities ever-growing needs. I see hemp as a movement to bring up one another, our nation, and humanity as whole.”

Co-Owner of Celestial Hemp
Mr. Roberts is the co-founder of Celestial Hemp Company. He graduated cum laude with a bachelor of Philosophy degree, with plans to go to law school. Instead, he dove directly into the cannabis industry in Colorado and most recently into the emerging North Carolina hemp industry. Celestial Hemp has grown to become a regional knowledge center for the hemp industry. Mr. Roberts has led the charge in educating the public on the many uses of hemp, plus navigating product development, banking issues and government regulations.