Business Honor Goes to a Most Unusual ‘High-Tech’ Firm

A San Diego company that manufactures an indoor horticulture device popular among marijuana growers has won top honors from an organization of the area’s business leaders.

Pyraponic Industries Inc. II, which advertises its product in pro-marijuana magazines such as High Times, has been recognized as the Business of the Year in Manufacturing from the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. The company is scheduled to receive the award later this year at a banquet along with six other businesses honored in other categories.

Despite the company’s notoriety, the chamber so far is undeterred. While the company’s advertising in pro-marijuana magazines “is a surprise to us,” there are no plans to revoke the award, said chamber spokesman Pete Litrenta.

“Of all those that applied, this is the best manufacturing company,” Litrenta said. “This company evidently showed a lot of growth in sales and employees.”

Pyraponic has sold more than 90,000 Phototrons since it was founded in 1982, DeMarco said. The 65-employee company, which sells its product strictly by mail order, reported $10 million in sales in 1989, and was recognized last year by Inc. magazine as one of the 500 fastest-growing private corporations in the country.

Jeffery DeMarco, the company’s founder and president, said advertisements in High Times, a magazine for marijuana enthusiasts, are responsible for more than 17% of sales of Phototron, the 42-inch-high indoor greenhouse he designed while a graduate student working on a federally licensed project on marijuana cultivation at the University of Illinois.

Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman Jim Mavromatis said Thursday that while local agents have not seized any Phototron device in connection with illegal pot-growing activity, other indoor greenhouses are frequently the subject of DEA drug raids.

“All I can tell you is that the only times I have seen indoor growing operations (they have been) for marijuana cultivation,” Mavromatis said.

DEA agents in San Diego visited the Pyraponic Industries plant in Rancho Bernardo, a San Diego suburb, last fall to investigate whether the company was engaged in any illegal activity. No arrests or seizures were made.

DeMarco, who started but did not complete his master’s degree in criminology, said the indoor greenhouse is advertised in more than 50 publications including Playboy, Penthouse, Better Homes & Gardens and Field & Stream. The device, which sells for $390, can be used to grow a wide variety of plants including fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs, he said.

Despite the company’s reliance on pro-marijuana magazines including High Times and Magical Blend, Pyraponic Industries does not condone marijuana cultivation and, in fact, revokes its service guarantee to anyone who employs the device to grow marijuana, DeMarco said.

“I’m not a policeman, I’m an entrepreneur,” the 38-year-old DeMarco said.