Board

HempLobby Board of Directors

Ed Saukkooja, Executive Director and Chief Lobbyist
Dave Olson, Director of Communication & Information

Ed Saukkooja, Hemplobby Executive Director

Ed Saukkooja, originally from Pe Ell, WA., spent 26 years working logging camps,mills, and port docks from Northern California to the oil soaked beaches of Prince William’s Sound. Ed has an office in Olympia, WA. and travels throughout the country consulting and speaking about hemp both in his role as a founding director of the the Hemp Industries Association (the industry’s largest and oldest trade organization) or as Proprietor of Walville Wally’s Hemp EXchange, a hemp product distributorship named after the abandon sawmill near Pe Ell, where his grandfather worked in the 1920’s.

More about Ed below.

Dave Olson is a Vancouver, Canada-based entrepreneur and writer. After growing up in British Columbia, Dave traveled and worked in Europe, Japan and the South Pacific as an educator, artist and farmer. He was a partner in an Internet service provider as well as offering consulting services in Olympia, Washington where he graduated from Evergreen State College in 2004.

Publications include both creative and research work, notably “Hemp Culture in Japan” in several periodicals and books. Dave also serves on the board of directors of the Washington State Internet Lobby, and co-curator of Japanhemp.org – a site about Cannabis in Japan. He wrote produced a multimedia documentary film called “the HempenRoad” and edited/compiled/wrote Hemplobby’s Practical Guide to Cannabis.  Read more about Dave, including myriad creative and expository articles, resumes and galleries at www.uncleweed.net.

More about Ed

Standing on the site of the abandoned Walville Sawmill, his company’s name-sake, where his grandfather worked in the 1920s, Ed reflects on his past, and the future for his grandchildren.

Raised on the head-waters of the Chehalis River, in the heart of the Willapa Hills, southwest Washington State. Timber had been king for over a century, and some thought they could never cut it all.

After graduating High School in the early 60’s, it was natural for him to seek employment in the forest products industry. Ed acknowledges, timber concerns have made great ecological advances in the past 35 years, and for that he is grateful, but more needs to be done.

After spending 26 years working logging camps and port docks, from Northern CA., to the Exxon soaked beaches of Prince William’s Sound, AK., he understands how delicate mother earth really is, and how destructive clear-cut logging and fossil fuels are to the environment.

Since becoming a hemp activist in 1990, Ed has founded AHA (Americans for Hemp Awareness) a grass-roots organization, helping to dispel myths and untruths surrounding marijuana and industrial hemp.

In 1993, “walville wally’s HEMP EXchange” became the first retail hemp store in SW Washington. Wanting to contacted a wider market than offered by retailing in Pe Ell, WA., the HEMP EXPRESS Van was born.

A converted bread truck, with V8 power, and a sleeper, Ed traveled the west educating the curious, while wholesaling the latest in hemp fashion and accessories.

In 1994, Ed helped found the Hemp Industries Association, and served on the board of directors. The annual HIA conventions have gained International recognition as a “gathering of pioneers”.

When not in the drivers seat of the HEMP EXPRESS VAN, he is on the phone and Internet, conducting the business of building the HEMP industry. His objective is to have local farmers produce seed and fiber for local industry.

“I want more for my granddaughter. I want cleaner air and water for her. I want less flooding in the valleys and fewer land slides in the hills. Stop clearcutting and exporting timber. The days of cheap chlorine bleached paper from our Northwest Forests are over. Most of all, I want the American citizens to know the truth surrounding the hemp issues. We have made great advancement in the past year, and armed with the truth, our movement can not fail.”

Ed has a realistic understanding of obstacles in our path with a common sense approach to accomplish the goals at hand.  Ed Saukkooja is available for consulting and speaking on hemp and other ecological issues.

Hemplobby Contact
P.O. Box 267
Pe Ell, WA. 98572
Phone: 800-963-4367
E.mail: ed (at) hemplobby.org – No Spam