Gage Cannabis operates a large grow operation in Warren with plans for 13 total marijuana retail shops. Currently, its Adrian and Ferndale locations are open to sell medical marijuana but are preparing to sell recreational soon. Gage will also open a Cookies-branded store at Eight Mile and Mound roads on Jan. 31; Gage licensed the popular cannabis brand from California rapper Berner.



Savaya, a longtime general manager at Verizon Wireless, is working to instill a corporate culture at Gage while maintaining an atmosphere more in line with what marijuana consumers have come to expect.

"My role is making sure the stores run from an efficiency and productivity standpoint. We're really focused on staffing and leadership development right now. I lead Gage University, so we can train our team members on legality, compliance and regulations. We are taking a back-end corporate approach. We want patients to walk in and feel like they are walking into a provisioning center. But that's the biggest thing, when you're growing as fast as we're growing. How do you find that balance so it doesn't impact the patient experience? Patients that come in want to work with real people, not someone that's a robot. We don't want anyone to come in and be afraid to ask questions because we're big shiny stores with employees with iPads. It's like an Apple store … a clean itemized store, but we want people to see we love cannabis as much as they do on a very personal level. We're really trying to take that same environment that's been out there for years, but behind the scenes run lean and clean like a major corporation."