The Future of Hempwood with Gregg Wilson #131

Greg Wilson is the founder of Hempwood, a hemp flooring and lumber company from Murray KY. When I think of industrial hemp, Kentucky doesn’t immediately come to mind as a place for innovation. But that’s not the case. There is a huge opportunity in industrial hemp and Greg is at the forefront of that market. In today’s episode, we learn all about the hemp plant, what it can do, and the challenges and opportunities  Hempwood faces.

Hempwood Topics

Hempwood is a wood substitute using hemp fibers. These are the questions we discussed:

• How did Hempwood get started?
• You believe there is a tremendous market for industrial hemp. Why?
• What are the benefits of your products that stand out from alternatives?
• What’s surprised you about your journey? What’s happened to Hempwood that you didn’t expect?
• What do you want to see happen to industrial hemp in the future?
• What’s the great challenge HempWood faces?
• How did you decide that hemp was in your future?

Greg’s Biography

It all started with a love for nature and a knack for numbers. HempWood Founder Greg Wilson says that his passion for nature stems from his upbringing. “I have been blessed to be born into a lineage of the outdoorsman. My father and grandfather have taught me to live off the land an

d the importance of putting mother nature first.”

Greg went on to get a degree in civil engineering and left the United States to work in the bamboo flooring mills of Anji, China. During his fourteen-year career, Greg was tasked with researching biomaterials to make hardwood. He tested over 200 plant species using an algorithm he developed in college and discovered HempWood.

HempWood – it had a nice ring and had market potential, but that idea was short-lived due to legal constraints. For years, HempWood wa

s just a novelty item but all of that changed with the passing of the 2014 Farm Bill. In 2016, the first HempWood IP was filed and just two years later, on August 26, 2018, Fibonacci, LLC opened its doors to the public and began production.

To date, the HempWood Headquarters resides in Murray, Kentucky where operations are focused on carbon negativity, sustainability, and healthy materials. As the first USDA Certified BioPreferred Hardwood Flooring made in America, Fibonacci, LLC continues to pioneer the way for healthy, sustainable building materials