William Waldrop, MBA

Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board

Mr. Waldrop co-founded EVIO, Inc. in 2014, and serves as its CEO and Chairman.  Mr. Waldrop led the company from startup to nationwide presence with labs in five states. Previously, Mr. Waldrop was Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Newport Entertainment Group Inc. since September 2005 and served as its Principal Financial Officer and Principal Accounting Officer.  He served as President and Chief Operating Officer of College Partnership, a publicly traded company that assists high school students with their college selection and financial aid. Prior to joining College Partnership, he served as Chief Executive Officer and President of Vision Direct Marketing, a full-service marketing company. Prior to starting Vision Direct Marketing, he held the position of Executive Vice President of First World Financial Inc. a nationwide mortgage company. As Vice President of Operations for Leading Edge Broadband Services, a start-up international communications company, he built the telecommunications network managing call traffic between the United States and the Philippines for International Call Centers. While at AirTouch Cellular, (now Verizon Wireless) he served as Senior Manager contributing to the development and implementation of the National Retail Distribution Strategy and as a Regional Sales Development Manager, where he led the formation of a 44-store, $100 million annual revenue distribution channel.  He has been a Director of Newport Entertainment Group Inc. since September 2005 and serves as Director of iPure Labs. Mr. Waldrop received a B.S. from California State University of Long Beach, 1991 and an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California, 1997.  

Lori Glauser, BSME, MS/MBA

Co-Founder, Chief Operations Officer, and Director

Ms. Glauser is responsible for the strategic growth and day to day operations of EVIO Labs. Along with CEO Will Waldrop, Signal Bay and EVIO Labs grew from a startup advisory firm in 2014 to 5 labs during the first two years of operation and are on track to open 18 labs by the end of 2018. Lori also leads the Advisory Services division which has provided services for dozens of startup companies that are now licensed to operate in the cannabis industry. Lori is also the founding chair of Women Grow – Las Vegas, served on FOCUS standards committee, co-author of Medical Marijuana Desk Reference, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. Lori founded Signal Bay and EVIO Labs on a foundation of 25 years’ experience in engineering, management consulting, and startups. Her expertise lies in business planning and operations, business process design, financial forecasting, risk, customer experience, and regulatory and policy. Previously, Ms. Glauser was a management consultant focusing on the energy industry with leading firms including Ernst & Young, IBM, Financial Times Group, and SNL Financial. She also launched two bay-area tech startups. Lori has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from University of Alabama.

Anthony Smith, PhD

Chief Science Officer and Director

Chief Science Officer of EVIO Labs and founder of Kenevir Research, Dr. Anthony Smith received his PhD from Oregon State University in Molecular & Cellular Biology with an emphasis on biochemistry, metabolism and nutrition. Before entering the Cannabis industry, Dr. Smith worked in natural products and biomedical research while serving as a leading international authority on aging, lipoic acid and vascular disease. He brings over 15 years of natural product research, quality assurance, product development, GMP manufacturing, FDA & regulatory experience and analytical chemistry expertise to EVIO Labs. ​Dr. Smith was recently appointed to the Oregon governor’s Task Force on Researching the Medicinal and Public Health Properties of Cannabis and serves on the scientific advisory board for the Ashland, Oregon based non-profit medical and horticultural research group, the Health Research Institute.

Al Lustig, MBA

President

Mr. Lustig joins EVIO in 2018 after completing a very successful and highly recognized 30-year career at Pfizer Inc. Al joined Pfizer in 1986 as a Professional Sales Representative and quickly ascended to positions of increased responsibility, to include Associate Director of Sales Operations, Cardiovascular District Manager, Regional Manager and State Director. In these many roles, Al has built, led and helped manage many district, regional and national sales organizations that consistently exceeded all performance expectations. His “environmental awareness” helped to redefine traditional business models to more closely align with both the marketplace and customer that in turn, resulted in the successful introductions of new and innovative pharmaceuticals, generating both billions in sales and improving the lives of millions of patients. While at Pfizer, Al also led many cross functional teams that partnered with senior leadership to help integrate Sales, Marketing, Medical, Operations, Strategy & Analytics and Government Relations in all business operations, worked with external consultants in both the design and implementation of creative digital sales tools and most importantly, aided hundreds of colleagues in their professional development. Al earned his MBA in Pharmaceutical Marketing from St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA in 2004.  Prior to joining Pfizer, he received a post graduate degree in Rehabilitation Therapy from Long Island University and served as a Captain in the U.S. Army as both a leader and instructor at the Army’s Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, VA.

Ron Russak BS, MBA

Vice President, Operations

Mr. Russak is responsible for the leadership, management, directions setting, and administration of all of EVIO’s laboratories. Prior to joining EVIO in 2018, Ron served as Regional Director for Quest Diagnostics for patient services since 2007, providing strategic and tactical planning for patient access points in California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. Ron also served as Director of Specimen Management for Quest Diagnostics and helped direct the post-merger activities of SKBL and Quest Diagnostics in Philadelphia.  Prior to Quest Diagnostics, Ron served as the Administrative Director for Laboratory Services, at Pennsylvania Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Health System for 12 years.  This 450-bed, acute- care hospital-based laboratory provided in-house testing for both clinical and anatomical pathology, where Ron facilitated the development and implementation of operating strategies, personnel and data management, development and maintenance of performance indicators, productivity statistics and comparative data.  Ron holds an MBA from Lasalle University in Philadelphia, as well as a Bachelor of Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

Senator Richard Polanco

Advisor

Senator Polanco is the former California State Senate Majority leader and member of the California State Assembly. First elected in 1986 to the Los Angeles City Council, in 1994 he was elected to the California State Senate (District 22, Los Angeles) and served as Senate Majority Leader from 1998 until his retirement in 2002. Senator is best known for his work with the Latino Legislative Caucus which promotes legislation and policies that improve empowerment, public policy, diversity and social justice. A native of East Los Angeles, California, he graduated from James A. Garfield High School where he served as senior class president. He attended both the University of Redlands and the Universidad Nacional Mexico, majoring in business administration.