It was meant to be a quick score—an RV packed with 80 kilos of weed rolling toward the Mexican border, a risky get-rich plan cooked up by a NASCAR mechanic and his partner in crime. But instead, dreams of fast cash gave way to gunfire and hard time served in a Juarez prison for drug smuggling.
That jailed mechanic was Autumn Karcey’s father, and his fateful gamble in the 1970s became the ignition point for the professional life his daughter would eventually lead—this time, with cannabis at the center, and the law on her side.
Falling in Love with Cultivation
With over two decades of working in the cannabis space, Autumn Karcey has become a leader in the industry. Throughout her career she has maintained her passion for cannabis, which she admits continues to drive her forward, and has become involved with various aspects of the cannabis sector, including permit acquisition, cultivation, facility design, and environmental optimization.
Her start in the industry came in 2003 in Oakland, California where she says that she fell in love with growing cannabis. In the years that followed, her grow houses evolved into warehouses and eventually she would partner with several dispensaries to integrate cannabis product under California Proposition 215, which permitted its medical use throughout the state.
Building Cultivo, Inc.
She did this for roughly ten years before founding Cultivo, Inc. on July 10, 2015, which according to Karcey is, “a design build firm that specializes in cannabis facilities, labs, processing facilities, outdoor farm planning, and greenhouses.”
“We were one of the first companies in the space at the time. So, we’ve had the opportunity to work in over 25 states and three countries implementing facilities,” Karcey said. “It’s been a labor of love over the years, and I’ve worked with some of the biggest brands in the industry. We’ve done everything from design, to permitting, licensing and then construction management, build out, and implementation.”
Proving Her Expertise
According to Karcey, growing Cultivo in the years since it was formed was an “interesting process” and that it “caught on like wildfire in terms of scalability.” She recalls receiving a call during her firm’s infancy from a businessman named Ed Rosenthal who was working on building a large grow facility in Canada, during a time when the first licensed producers were making their move there. At that time, Rosenthal had a multi-million dollar budget and his facility encompassed over 360,000 square feet, according to Karcey.
When she was contacted by Rosenthal, Karcey said that she was stricken with a mild case of imposter syndrome due to how expensive and expansive the project was and how she’d never tackled anything quite like it before. However, she was ultimately up to the challenge and decided to meet with Rosenthal and his team.
“I found myself in a room of 14 of the country’s most decorated architects and engineers and was reviewing the plan sets that they had already created,” Karcey said. “I noticed that their HVAC component was overengineered by 50%—they didn’t even understand what set points the room had needed to be before they had built or had advised and designed the entire system.”
She continued, “So, we kind of took that component and I rewrote that with a few of my guys that I had been working with for years on building these other grows, and we saved them $4 million overnight on their HVAC system. And so that kind of caught on, and we ended up scaling.”
Expanding into Manufacturing with Artemis Copack
Not one to rest on her laurels, Karcey also runs a company called Artemis Copack, which partners with other cannabis brands and assists them with manufacturing and packaging their own products.
With headquarters located in Northern California, Artemis Copack boasts a 67,000 square foot facility that consists of about seven different buildings, where each building is dedicated to a different part of the manufacturing and co-packing process, according to Karcey.
“We have all the high-tech automated equipment [like] bottling lines and drawing lines. We do pre-rolls, and vape cartridge filling, and have a 20,000 square foot drying facility for outdoor farmers so they can dry their product, which is modeled after an indoor drying facility,” Karcey said.
Honoring the Past with Smugglers
With her background and unwavering love for growing cannabis, Karcey will also be launching a cannabis brand called Smugglers within the next six months in honor of her father. The brand has already received recognition at the California State Fair Competition, placing bronze and ranking among the Top 150 of the more than 600 entries listed.
“He was an original smuggler,” Karcey said, while reminiscing about her father’s past. “For him, it was definitely a life changing experience and so I’m starting this brand to kind of honor the smugglers and the people that took risks because they knew that this plant was special.”
“They knew that this plant could change human lives and could heal people, and they took risks in order to get it to places where it needed to be for different reasons. So, I just want to kind of pay homage to the people that came before us,” she added.
Advocating for Women in Cannabis
When it comes to recognizing the contributions that women have made to the cannabis industry, Karcey was quick to point out that in the early days of her career there weren’t many females being represented. But as more regulation took place in California and the dangers of growing had lessened, things eventually changed.
“I see a lot more female-led companies now and I’m really encouraged by that,” Karcey said. “I think there needs to be a lot more of them. And I think that including women on your board or in C-suite executive level positions is critical to a company’s success.”
Also Read: Last Week in Weed: August 5- 12, 2025
Passion Over Profit
Karcey says she’s excited about the future of the cannabis space and looks forward to launching Smugglers. Her advice to those interested in becoming part of the cannabis industry is simple: “Do it because you love it.”
“Don’t do it because there is a dollar sign attached to it,” Karcey said. “There are much easier ways to make money in this world. The only thing that has kept me here for 23 plus years is because I absolutely love what I do, and I’m very passionate about it.”
