Holly (Rookstool) Bell (A’85) faced a steep learning curve when she left the private sector to become the director of cannabis for Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) in February. She’d spent most of her career working in banking in Nashville, Tennessee, and her new role required her to learn about Florida’s widespread urban and rural agricultural industries.

“Thankfully, I have an ag degree from Purdue,” Bell says. “That background helped me delve into the complex agriculture of Florida and understand how to build and sustain an agricultural enterprise. I know that hemp will help the agriculture community and bring positive environmental changes.”

Bell was tasked with launching a statewide industrial hemp program, and she realized a large portion of her duties would be to educate fellow Floridians.

“I tell people that I don’t oversee medical marijuana,” she says. “That’s the Department of Health. I do help with the edibles component of medical marijuana because you have to meet certain food-safety standards in order to produce those edibles.”

Hemp will help the agriculture community and bring positive environmental changes.

The farm bill passed by the US Congress in 2018 legalized the commercial production of hemp. Because the Florida Legislature was not in session when the bill received presidential signature, Bell had a couple of months to discuss the particulars of corresponding bill formation and passage at the state level. On May 3, Florida approved a bill that enabled the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to create a state hemp program.

Getting to a point of economic viability requires a vast infrastructure so crops can be processed and raw material can be turned into goods such as CBD oil, paper, clothing, and rope. Now that companies have permission to expand, what may have been thought of as a mom-and-pop industry is anything but.

“This is a billion-dollar industry made up of very qualified and educated people,” Bell says. “It’s not back-alley shops.”

In her quest to enlighten Florida’s residents about hemp, Bell has received help from a fellow Boilermaker. Jerry Fankhauser Jr. (A’85, MA A’87) is the lead contact for the hemp research program in the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“Since hemp had been banned in Florida for more than 70 years, this research is vital for farmers and the FDACS hemp program,” Bell says. “Jerry holds educational workshops and frequently speaks with me around the state.”

Moving to Florida was a big change after 25 years in Nashville and her childhood in Indiana, but Bell finds the sense of community and agricultural diversity fulfilling, and she’s grateful for the opportunity to positively impact her neighbors’ lives.

“Most people think of the beach when you say Florida, but I see it as a huge farm surrounded by a beach,” she says. “The rich heritage of agriculture is amazing and getting back to working with the industry has been fabulous. I feel like I am at home.”