Carly and Duane live in La Junta, Colorado, and are working to build the CHPC’s first whole plant processing facility in southeastern Colorado and then provide more processing facilities around the state and across the country.
Co-Founders Carly and Duane Stjernholm
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About Us
Carly and Duane are dedicated to bring whole plant Agricultural Hemp processing to rural Colorado and eventually all of the United States. Their ultimate goal is to have similar Cooperatives in every state and every Cooperative being shareholders in every other Cooperative. This will reward the growers and manufacturers who are doing the work and allow everyone to collaborate and share in everyone’s success.
Experience
Carly and Duane bring a wide variety of people and organizational skills in their roles as CHPC Co-Founders. With a combination of business skills and hands-on experience they are ideally suited to do what is necessary for the success of the CHPC.
With over 50 years of experience in sales, marketing, and building relationships, the CHPC Co-Founders bring a skill set suited perfectly to building a State, National and World-Wide Cooperative. With a vision of all the benefits this type of collaboration can produce, the goal of the Co-Founders is to reward the people doing the work and provide the tools they need to be successful.
Education
Duane Stjernholm was born in La Junta, Colorado, a small town in the southeastern corner of the state. Raised in nearby Cheraw, an even smaller town, he graduated Co-Valedictorian from Cheraw High School and continued his education at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, earning a B.S. Degree in Psychology. Seeking to explore the world in search of adventure, he joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in the Philippines working in Rice Irrigation Water Management in the Province of Pampanga, and subsequently teaching Introductory Social Sciences at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños, Laguna.
Recovering from “Reverse Culture Shock” upon his return to Colorado, he attended the Iliff School of Theology in Denver earning a Master of Arts in Religion Degree, specializing in Religious Philosophy and Metaphysics. Soon after graduation from Iliff he was fortunate to attend a live speech by the renown World Citizen and Inventor, R. Buckmaster Fuller, who inspired him on a 35 year Mission of changing the prevalent mind-set of humanity from competition to cooperation and collaboration in order to Co-Create the Greatest and Highest Good for all Earth Citizens. To that end he founded the unprecedented Member organization, the United Earth Ecclesia, and later Co-Founded the Colorado Hemp Processing Cooperative
To support and further his Mission he has worked in a number of hospitality and service oriented positions culminating in his last positions as Production Administrator at the nationwide non-profit, Learning Ally (formerly Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic). He has published two books and launched United Earth Ecclesia website, ExLo.org, dedicated to the Co-Creation of the Greatest and highest Good for all Earth Citizens.
Returning to La Junta after a 40 year absence to be closer to relatives and out of the big city, Duane saw a need for hemp processing facilities in the Arkansas Valley and beyond for the rapidly expanding hemp industry in Colorado. He responded to the “find a need and fill it” adage, and as a result he and his Co-Founder have established the Colorado Hemp Processing Cooperative to fill that need.
Carly Stjernholm was born in Rapid City SD and raised in Sioux Falls SD where she graduated high school. She continued her education in Omaha NE and after moves to Santa Clara CA, Wichita KS and Dallas TX, she joined the rest of her family in Littleton CO. She has spent 44 years in Sales and Marketing including, 10 years in the Ski Industry, 15 years in Space Planning and Design and 19 years in Retail Management.
In 2002 Carly and Duane joyously married on the top of Pikes Peak, and they currently reside in their Quirky Home in La Junta, Colorado.
