SōRSE Employee Spotlight: Zach Hershberger

Meet our Operations Manager, Zach Hershberger, who has been with the company since 2019. Drawing on his experience working in the food and beverage industry, specifically in the production of craft beer and cannabis beverages, Zach guides the Operations Team to produce and fulfill orders, launch new products, and implement new processes and strategies. Zach also offers technical support to our customers as well as identifies strategic production partners. No one loves creating processes at SōRSE more than Zach!  

You started your career working in two of Seattle’s craft breweries. How did you become interested in beer? What skills did you gain in those jobs that apply to what you do now? 

In college, I taught myself how to brew beer, which is really where my brewing career began. I gathered as much information as I could find from brewing books, Reddit, whatever source I could find, then learned by trial and error with limited equipment. Brewing is a process of tightening down variables. When you home brew, you have to be able to roll with the punches as well as problem-solve.  

After graduating from the University of Washington, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do career-wise, so I spent some time traveling around the US and Southeast Asia. When I got back, I was set on landing a job in the brewing industry because I was really interested in it and I thought I had a good understanding of the process from teaching myself home brewing. I printed out a stack of resumes and handed them to whomever I could at different breweries. Persistence landed me a job as a keg washer at Cloudburst Brewing which had been opened by the former innovation brewer and the lead brewer at Elysian Brewing. I worked with them for about six months and learned everything I could from them, then moved on to Hales Brewing because I would have more exposure to all aspects of the brewing process – including blending, kegging, bottling, and canning. Being a really good brewer requires resourcefulness. You run into issues all the time, and you have to be able to problem–solve, accept the fact there will be issues, and not let that slow you down. If you expect to meet roadblocks, you won’t be surprised by them. I’ve definitely brought that mentality with me to SōRSE.   

How did you come to work at SōRSE? What was your first year like? 

I left Hales after a few years to work at GreenMed Labs (GML) to help them with beverage production where a friend of mine worked. At that point, I had learned every aspect of the brewing process. I needed to decide if I wanted to go to another brewery, or pivot into another industry where I could build on my processing knowledge and where I could help a company scale up its production and make the process more efficient. I was also intrigued by the idea of cannabis beverages. I definitely had not seen anything like that before, and I felt like I had the skillset to help them improve their production of Happy Apple. You don’t really know a process until you can train someone else on how to do it. A big test for me was training the person who would eventually take my place and get him to the point where he knew the process from start to finish as well as I did.  

After working at GML for two years, I decided to work for SōRSE. By the time I left GML, the business was very self-sufficient and established; all of the systems and processes we had established were working really well. We had just launched Major, not knowing that that product was going to skyrocket. I was interested in what SōRSE was doing and could see that momentum was building. I approached our CEO, Howard Lee to see if there was a place for me in the company, and there, I started working in Operations. Together, we started creating systems for organizing orders, manufacturing and producing emulsion.  

What do you enjoy about the role of Operations Manager at SōRSE, and what’s been challenging?  

What I really enjoy about my position is building processes that work and being in the center of this web of people with different jobs all trying to achieve a goal. I like figuring out what the logical paths are to attain that goal and what each person has to do to achieve it. We are able to create processes with everyone’s input and implement them before they are needed. I like to stay ahead of things; I’d rather set something up, anticipating the problem before it arises, so we don’t have to scramble to fix it.   

The kind of work we do comes in waves. One week might be slow, and then the next week we’re slammed. There’s no predictable pace to it. My focus right now is working with everyone on the team to keep our systems running smoothly as we continue to grow. 

Can you share some highlights from your time at SōRSE?  

Building the process and making equipment recommendations used to create the first cannabis beverages made in Canada was a big highlight in 2020. We were able to connect them with the suppliers and co-manufacturers they needed to get the product on the shelves within six months.  

Other highlights were getting one of our co-man’s employees fully trained on our processes as well as making the mobile unit a reality. Launching powder was a big deal as well. Our suppliers are really happy with our ability to convert their raw material into powder format. I’m also proud that I wrote the original SOP packet for all of our processing that we are still using, which I edit and update regularly. It was like writing that 25-30 page research paper in college under a time crunch. 

Lastly, our relationship with our partner, Cann, a micro-dosed cannabis-infused beverage, has been a huge highlight and continues to be. When I first came on board, my title was “Technical Account Manager,” and Cann was my first account. When they first started, I was able to help the Cann team troubleshoot a few key issues they were having as they were getting off the ground. It’s really cool to see how successful they’ve become.  

If you could, what product would you create for consumer use?  

I think it’d be cool to have a small, discreet single dose packet of cannabinoids that could be offered in a variety of concentrations and combinations that you could pop in your pocket for everyday use – basically, different iterations of Pearl Mini, one of THC Essentials’ brands.  

 Can you share a fun fact that not a lot of people know about you? 

I’m not allergic to anything, but sometimes I tell people I’m allergic to tomatoes because I don’t like them. It’s a texture thing.