Dr. Frances Gilman, also known as Franny, is the current senior vice president of a CBD industry company called Socati. Before she came on board with the organization, she worked at Blue Marble Biomaterials, a company that manufactured specialty compounds for fragrances, cosmetics and food products. After Socati, Dr. Gilman advanced from her initial position as a consulting microbiologist to her present executive position.
Dr. Frances Gilman researched microorganisms in Greenland as part of her PhD studies. These studies revealed insights about the role of the ecology of Greenland as it affects climate change. Gilman received her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Montana. After she graduated, she found a position in her field at Blue Marble.
Dr. Gilman was focused primarily on academic and research pursuits until she realized that the business aspects of her organizations offered opportunities to positively mitigate climate change and create other solutions for worldwide problems. Dr. Gilman now focuses on leading a team that oversees the manufacturing operations at the facility in Missoula, Montana. Dr. Gilman believes that the team that she and the organization have put together has great promise to succeed in their broad-spectrum endeavors.
In regard to the recent acquisition of the Missoula facility, Franny believes that the collaboration offers greater focus on the hemp industry, and this creates a greater potential to make progress in the industry and its technology. Socati is dedicated to producing products of the highest quality that elevates the customer’s satisfaction and benefits to the forefront. The production process at the Missoula plant ensures quality by adhering to Safe Quality Food (SQF) and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) protocols.
The Missoula facility places an emphasis on creating sustainable and environmentally friendly products. The team is highly attentive to the extraction process and the quality types of solvents used during the various extraction procedures. The solvents are bio-based rather than petroleum-based, superbly more friendly toward the environment. The production process also avoids excess waste and side streams, and waste materials are vastly limited via a recycling program that produces other quality byproducts that the company sells.
Dr. Gilman encourages women to enter the CBD industry, including THC-free and non-detectable THC, and urges them not to be deterred by the present smaller ratio of women in the field. Women can find assistance and support through specialized groups that are dedicated to women in the industry, for instance on LinkedIn. There is definitely a sense of community between women in the CBD industry that enables them to support one other rather than undermine each other. This has been found to be true even among women working at companies that are in competition with each other.
The hemp industry is largely driven by a female customer base, so it seems that women are suited to play a key role in the manufacturing and business operations within the industry. Dr. Gilman is optimistic that the outlook of the industry and its female participation is moving in an upward and positive direction for a wide range of quality ingredients, including the cannabinoid class of diverse chemical compounds, and what production of ingredients from hemp-derived products like CBG, CBC, CBN, looks like, for instance, water soluble CBD, THC-free and non-detectable THC classes of products.
Dr. Gilman believes that the CBD industry demonstrates signs a solid future based on the high demand in the marketplace for hemp extracts and CBD products, and especially water-soluble ones that are better for the planet. When companies focus on consistent high quality in their health and wellness products, it creates a greater likelihood that legislation will allow the products to become further legalized and enter more worldwide markets. CBD has potential in products such as topical ointments, nutritional supplements and many others. Gilman and her team are in a unique position to create leading-edge products in a variety of broad-spectrum markets that need the sort of ingredients Dr Gilman is involved with producing.
