Generation Hemp, Inc. has hired former Baker Botts partner Chad Burkhardt as its first general counsel.
Burkhardt joins the Dallas-based hemp company from TransAtlantic Petroleum Ltd., where he was vice president and general counsel following 14 years with Baker Botts. He officially started his new role with Generation Hemp on Monday.
“It’s an interesting opportunity to get in on the early stage development of a public company that intends to be very acquisitive,” Burkhardt said.
The company, formerly called Home Treasure Finders, is a mid-stream hemp processor, or a hemp “dry cleaner” that doesn’t grow hemp and has no end product, according to Generation Hemp CEO and founder Gary Evans. It began operating in the hemp industry after the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp and differentiated it from other cannabis products.
“We take wet hemp from the field—farmers bring it to us in bales—and we dry it, clean it, strip it, and get it ready for an extraction plant that would pull out the flour and the CBD so that it can be processed,” Evans said. “That’s what we call the mid-stream sector of the business.”
The company began trading in March on the OTCQB, an early stage company exchange operated by OTC Markets Group Inc. In January, the Generation Hemp completed its $5.1 million acquisition of Halcyon Thruput, LLC, which dries and processes harvested hemp in its Kentucky facility.
Evans said he hopes to list Generation Hemp on the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange this summer.
The company also announced Brada Wilson as corporate controller on Tuesday.
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