Hartford Business Journal

14 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | NOVEMBER 7, 2022 Business partners James Jeter (left) and Kennard Ray stand outside Hartford Correctional Center. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Second Chances Ex-cons turn to advocacy, cannabis and entrepreneurship following incarceration By Skyler Frazer sfrazer@hartfordbusiness.com D epending on the day, you might find Hartford resident Kennard Ray wearing one of several hats. Ray is founder and co-director of the Full Citizens Coalition, an orga- nization committed to civic engage- ment and restoring voting rights to ex-felons and convicts. He's also CEO of Earth Strong Naturals LLC, a Hartford-based tobacco leaf company, and he's one of several cannabis entrepre- neurs who recently won approval to grow marijuana for the state's recreational market. Oh, and he's working on a docu- mentary series about violence and the opioid epidemic in Hartford. "Entrepreneurialism is kind of the spirit of our citizenship," Ray said. "The idea of being able to explore beyond what you already know is entrepreneurial, and a lot of people get stuck doing what they already know." Ray's past path wasn't always an easy one. The 41-year-old grew up on Mahl Avenue in Hartford's North End and was first arrested at 16 years old on drug charges. After spending about 5 1/2 years in jail across a few drug and gun-related convictions, Ray was released from prison for the final time in 2007 and began a career of political consulting, advocacy and entrepreneurship. Now, 15 years since his release from prison, Ray is set to become a major player in the state's new recreational marijuana industry, and one of the faces of Connecticut's social equity program, which aims to open up the market to those with past criminal histories, or who come from areas hit hard by the war on drugs. Ray, through an equity joint ven- ture with his business partners at Connecticut-based marijuana dispen- sary company Fine Fettle, has been issued a provisional license to open one of the state's first recreational marijuana grow facilities. He's also a principal of the six new dispensaries Fine Fettle hopes to open in 2023. "This cannabis story doesn't hap- pen without all the other strides that got me to this point," said Ray. 'Jail to Yale' In 1998 at Cheshire Correctional Institution, Ray met James Jeter, who would go on to be co-director of the Full Citizens Coalition. Jeter was serving a 30-year sentence for murder, while Ray was locked up for selling narcotics and criminal firearm possession. Ray visited Cheshire Correctional in 2014 as a free man to speak to a group of students in Wesleyan University's prison education program about what he'd been doing since his release. Jeter was in that audience, and the session led Jeter to "envision" what the other side of incarceration looks like, he said. "I go down there and see Kennard walking in a suit, for me it was very anchoring to see the transition," Jeter said. When Jeter got out of prison in 2016 after serving more than 19 years, the two reconnected and decided to advocate for ex-felons like themselves that, at the time, didn't have the right to vote until their parole was completed. Soon after, they started Full Citizens Coali- tion, an organization committed to fighting disenfranchisement. "James was really hun- gry," Ray said of his friend and business partner. Ray said the organization was crucial to last year's passage of a state law that returned the right to vote to more than 4,000 people with past convictions. "Making sustainable change is different," said Ray, who in 2013 was named deputy chief of staff to then Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra, a position he never served in after news of his past arrests became public. "When you understand that you're fighting systems, you need a systemic change." (Ray in 2018 also ran unsuccess- fully for a seat in the state House of Representatives as a member of the Working Families Party, where he previously worked as a political and legislative director.) Speaking out after leaving incar- ceration opened some other doors for Jeter. He's now also the program director of the Civic Allyship Initia- tive at Dwight Hall, Yale Universi- ty's Center for Social Justice and Public Service. The duo said correctional officers commonly remind prisoners that they're in "jail not Yale," so Jeter's presence at the school has made their experience feel full-circle. Jeter said he wants Full Citizens Coalition to have a presence on college campuses and other institu- tions to help with civic engagement and voting rights efforts in typically underserved communities. Going into business Advocacy wasn't where the two stopped. In 2019 they launched the Five Star Fronto brand under Ray's Earth Strong Naturals company and began selling whole fronto leaf tobacco to convenience stores and gas stations in the area. The company has products in more

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