After years spent “bouncing around” in the media world, Dan Saita ’13 seems to have finally found his niche — in a growing industry whose products are becoming more accessible, less stigmatized, and increasingly mainstream.
Saita is vice president of sales and marketing for North Lake Supply, a New Jersey–based cannabis company founded by Saita and five childhood friends. “I commute to work every day with my best friend, just like we drove to high school together,” he says.
After graduating with a concentration in art and art history, Saita moved to New York City, where he worked as a graphic designer for a spell, then in marketing, with stints at Thrillist and The Dodo. “It was an interesting ride,” says Saita, “but my heart wasn’t in it.”
By 2018 Saita was ready for something new. Around that time, he reconnected with a group of friends — “guys I’ve known since middle school,” says Saita, who grew up in the small town of Milford, Pa. The idea was to capitalize on an emerging market and one of the group’s favorite pastimes: “We’ve always loved and appreciated cannabis,” he says.
With help from 35 shareholders — all family members and friends — the guys launched North Lake Supply, a cannabis cultivation and manufacturing company in Augusta, N.J., an area not far from where the friends used to “ride our bikes around” as kids, says Saita. They partnered with Vice President of Operations Tim Vanwingerden’s family’s horticulture farm and converted their 42,000-square-foot greenhouse, which now houses more than 20,000 cannabis plants and flowers. In the adjacent processing plant, North Lake Supply “fresh freezes” their harvest and sells it to manufacturers, who use the extracted product to create vaporizers, concentrates, and other consumables sold at dispensaries throughout New Jersey. Saita is using his marketing background to establish the North Lake brand — and takes pride in having settled into a career he’s passionate about.
“I think more people are realizing the quality-of-life benefits of cannabis, and that’s removing the stigma,” he says, recalling the time he shared North Lake’s products with his grandmother, who was battling cancer. “It really does help people.”