BOSTON — There’s a new face in Massachusetts’s fluctuating cannabis industry: Travis Ahern, the existing Holliston town administrator, will take on the Cannabis Control Commission’s executive director role in March.
Ahern — who accepted the role after the commission’s former pick, David Lakeman, backed out of an initial offer in December — comes to the commission as it works on new regulations and its first governance charter. The agency has been at that work for months, while facing upheaval stemming from unresolved leadership and commissioner turnover, legal disputes, and a watchdog’s call last June to place the CCC into receivership. The commission is still without a permanent chair.
Ahern has worked for the town of Holliston since 2020, and earlier in his career worked in policy and finance at the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority Advisory Board and in financial roles for the towns of Danvers and Weston. In a recent interview with the News Service, Ahern talked about how he’ll approach the role, his priorities on Day One, and what he would consider an effective CCC.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Q: You’re coming from a mainly administrative role. How do you plan on approaching the policy aspect of this CCC role — how hands-on do you plan on being in that respect?
A: Getting through the (Master of Public Administration) program at Northeastern, where former Gov. Dukakis was my adviser, public policy was always my interest. One of the things that I excelled at in public administration was the finance side … Public policy, between my education background and my MWRA experience, is something that I wasn’t getting in municipal government. I wasn’t feeling like I was going to, and that’s what led me to this. So I do intend to be involved in that. But I would say overall, my approach will always be to support the subject-matter experts within the organization and try to alleviate or mitigate any barriers that they have for success. There is a research team, there is a legal team, there is the day-to-day licensing and permitting and enforcement — my stance on all of those things, whether it be policy or planning, is to ensure that we are putting CCC staff and commissioners in position to be successful. That’s (been) my approach at the MWRA, (that’s been) my approach in Holliston — that’s just how I will always tackle most of these items. I don’t have a problem being at the forefront of any particular issue, but certainly being the face of cannabis is not my end game, it’s not my default setting.
Q: The CCC has been called an “embattled” agency across most media outlets, and it has faced a number of trials and tribulations since its inception. What does an effective CCC look like to you?
A: I think I need to disregard, to a certain extent, a lot of the media coverage. I’ve had the opportunity since May to dig in and say, ‘What is being covered accurately that needs to be addressed?’ and ‘What is there because it’s clickbait?’ There’s a very clear delineation in my field of government administration between, for example, a whistleblower and a disgruntled employee, and you have to be able to differentiate those two, and the media is not going to do that for you.
What does it look like for the CCC to be successful? I see essentially two parallel organizations that need to talk to each other, and that’s the role of the executive director here, to ensure that that happens. You have the day-to-day operations of licensing, permitting and enforcement, and you have long-range planning for changes internal and external. Federal government changes, schedule changes to Schedule III coming potentially, other states that we work with through (the Cannabis Regulators Association) that may be making changes that we want to adopt. So we have to have a long-range planning arm of the organization, and we have to do the day-to-day functions that make it a safely-regulated industry, because that’s the expectation of (the) public. The way that this organization is going to operate the most efficiently, to put people in position to be successful, is (by) creat(ing) opportunities for the day-to-day, meat-and-potatoes functions of licensing and permitting and enforcement; (being) able to talk to and work with long-range planning arms like research and legal and the legislative team that is going to be forecasting what’s coming; and hav(ing) opportunities for those two groups to work together. That’s not an uncommon problem in most government organizations.
The other challenge that it seems has existed in the past is simply a conflict from the very beginning of the way that it was written, [which] says the chair of the commission does this, executive director does this, and there’s a lot of overlap. I think the other thing right out of the gate just to clarify a lot of that, and it solves a lot of the actual issues, is the governance charter. That charter is already in draft form. I just did (something similar) in Holliston (with) the Town Manager Act that hit the governor’s desk that differentiates the role of the Chair of the Select Board and the role of the Town Manager, and make(s) sure that is working properly so that both people are in position to be successful. Solving the governance question … ripples down and impacts everybody else in that organization and everybody in the market who’s impacted by the CCC’s day to day.
Q: Holliston has a retail ban on marijuana — it’s technically a “no” community related to the state’s cannabis law. You’re going from leading a town that doesn’t implement some cannabis policy to leading an agency whose job it is to promote that policy. How will you approach that change in environment, and how will you use your experience to work with other “no” towns across the state?
A: I don’t consider Holliston to be a “no” town. The terminology, I don’t bicker with — they chose “no” on retail, and they haven’t changed their mind. The only reason I wouldn’t classify Holliston as a “no” community is that they have “no” on retail because retail may not make sense — they may change their mind, to be honest — and I do think I can see Holliston very much enjoying and engaging in the opportunities that come out of social consumption, because we have the businesses in the industrial parks that may be able to partake in the supplemental, and we have a number of different instances, in terms of events, that may be able to utilize social consumption. (Holliston has) already embraced delivery, and they’re going to have the option soon for social consumption. So I would equate that to other communities as well. Somerville is all in, love it, that’s great — that’s their choice. If another town makes a different decision, if a town or city doesn’t have the industrial base or doesn’t want outdoor growing for a variety of reasons, it generally seems that it will be written to at least give communities some authorization to say “no.” I think that communities need to make their decisions for themselves. Zoning is incredibly difficult. We just went through MBTA [Communities Act] zoning in Holliston — these are major changes that change the shape of these communities, and so communities should take their time to make them.
Q: When you start in March, what are some priorities with which you’ll hit the ground running?
A: I generally look at this (by) 30 days, 90 days, first year. So, 30 days: the governance document, I think, to the extent that it’s ready. The commission made it clear they wanted the new executive director to come in and look at (it) and be comfortable before it went into effect. As I sat there in October, the new general counsel had just started, and so having two new people that really need to impact that document coming in would settle a lot of things, and I think, give clarity to the Legislature as well, (which is) going to need to be an incredibly important partner for the CCC moving forward.
The 90 days: (Making sure all the) things that the commission has put on the docket between November and December leading into calendar year 2025, utilizing Chapter 180, get to the finish line. So the two-driver rule, microbusiness impacts, social consumption — these are massive changes in terms of their impacts to the businesses and the industry. Getting those to the finish line is going to be a priority there. There’s (also) a short-term answer needed on testing, because it’s important for the market, it’s important for consumers to understand that they’re consuming safe products, and it’s really important for the CCC’s image in the state, and more nationally, (that it’s) known that testing is being done correctly and that we have good control on that.
Q: What are the long-term priorities you’ll focus on?
A: In the long-term, I think there are some decisions that need to be made about what the internal capacity of the commission should be for testing. That may look like a standards lab — which, at the MWRA, we had an internal lab, and it was very important, and it’s led to a lot of Globe articles about Covid in the waste stream. And then there’s other (agencies) that go external for testing. Is it right to continue to do that? Is it right to build capacity internally? Once we get through implementing a lot of the great work that the commission has been doing really in the last year since Chapter 180 came to fruition, those are the long-term things that we need to be actively working towards while we get all of these other things situated.