{"id":16671,"date":"2025-02-03T08:04:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T13:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=16671"},"modified":"2025-02-03T09:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T14:27:05","slug":"finding-his-niche-in-a-growing-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2025\/02\/03\/finding-his-niche-in-a-growing-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding His Niche in a ‘Growing’ Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After years spent \u201cbouncing around\u201d in the media world, Dan Saita \u201913 seems to have finally found his niche \u2014 in a growing industry whose products are becoming more accessible, less stigmatized, and increasingly mainstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saita is vice president of sales and marketing for North Lake Supply, a New Jersey\u2013based cannabis company founded by Saita and five childhood friends. \u201cI commute to work every day with my best friend, just like we drove to high school together,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. \u201cIt was an interesting ride,\u201d says Saita, \u201cbut my heart wasn\u2019t in it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2018 Saita was ready for something new. Around that time, he reconnected with a group of friends \u2014 \u201cguys I\u2019ve known since middle school,\u201d 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\u2019s favorite pastimes: \u201cWe\u2019ve always loved and appreciated cannabis,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With help from 35 shareholders \u2014 all family members and friends \u2014 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 \u201cride our bikes around\u201d as kids, says Saita. They partnered with Vice President of Operations Tim Vanwingerden\u2019s family\u2019s 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 \u201cfresh freezes\u201d 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 \u2014 and takes pride in having settled into a career he\u2019s passionate about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think more people are realizing the quality-of-life benefits of cannabis, and that\u2019s removing the stigma,\u201d he says, recalling the time he shared North Lake\u2019s products with his grandmother, who was battling cancer. \u201cIt really does help people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Saita \u201913 is vice president of sales and marketing for a New Jersey\u2013based cannabis company he founded with childhood friends. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":16914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[354,457,2750,500,2752,2753],"coauthors":[1720],"class_list":["post-16671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-alumni","tag-cannabis","tag-dan-saita","tag-marketing","tag-new-jersey","tag-north-lake-supply"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4kT","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/Niche_v1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16671"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16715,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671\/revisions\/16715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16671"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}