About Kicking Mule Hemp CBD

The parent company of the Kicking Mule Hemp brand is Shadow Works LLC.  Rich and Phyllis Jessen, owners of Shadow Works LLC and Kicking Mule Hemp, were both previously retired. Our Shop Foreman is Sherry Morehead.  

Rich served as a Lieutenant Colonel with US Marine Corps Reserve with 26 years of service, about half active duty, with war time experience in Kuwait and Iraq in 2002 / 3. Rich’s specialty was Air Command and Control and he served on the 1st MEF Commanding Generals Staff supervising air delivered fires.This experience taught Rich about mission, responsibility, leadership, coordination, and technical mastery of systems that produce results without fail.

Rich Jessen served as a Special Agent with Federal Law Enforcement with 24 years of service. This experience taught Rich to balance mission and risk and to operate as a team. Forced attention to detail as a Special Agent has helped Rich to mentor the Kicking Mule team to master the finer points of manufacturing and business.      

Phyllis Jessen served the Spokane Police Department for more than 30 years as an evidence technician. She is by the book, all the way. 

Sherry Morehead has been with the company since 2014. She was hired as a manufacturing technician and quickly demonstrated her ability to lead people and master the administration of manufacturing without fail. Rich calls Sherry his Gunnery Sergeant, which is an extreme compliment from an old Marine. Sherry runs the Kicking Mule and Shadow Works Shop. She has a myriad of varied life experience that includes running her own construction company focused on rehabilitation of distressed properties, Champion Fiddler and supervising the production of millions of high quality products for Shadow Works. As a bonus, she owns her own skid steer and knows how to use it. 

Beginning as Shadow Works

Rich and Phyllis Jessen saw a need and responded. The mission to build a manufacturing company started at home with used stainless parts.

Back in 2013, a friend, Eric, was embarking on a journey to build a successful large-scale beard care product company (Beardbrand). Eric needed a reliable, trustworthy friend to make his product line in Washington state. Rich, our founder and CEO, and his wife Phyllis, were their production team. They collaborated with Eric to produce a full service line of beard care products that included nine (9) scented variants of beard oil, mustache wax, beard balm, sea salt hair spray and cold process soap. Eric’s venture was a success, due in part to our team headed by Sherry, to provide custom, reliable manufacturing services that ensured the quality and control of the processes. Collaborating with Beardbrand translated into Beardbrand becoming worth multiple millions and Shadow Works gaining 10 years experience in custom manufacturing of high value products with an experienced team and acquisition of a 6,000 square foot, food grade facility. We continue to serve Beardbrand today as a trusted maker of their products. 

In 2019, we added the production Hemp sourced CBD (and other legal cannabinoids) products to our manufacturing repertoire. Since then, and in response to the legalization of hemp sourced products detailed by the 2018 farm Bill, Shadow Works has been white label manufacturing hemp sourced CBD products for other companies, to high standards, with success. 

We witnessed testimonies of CBD effectiveness and relief during our short tenure, we like the products, we use them and want to share. Discovering that we can manufacture more high quality Hemp sourced CBD products than our white label customers could sell; We thought, “why not create our own brand of Hemp sourced products?”  Rich, our founder, passionately pioneered and stubbornly nurtured the Kicking Mule brand into the competitive hemp sourced CBD world in order to allow the team to make CBD products available to the masses. A blue collar team making superior products affordable. We are proud of our efforts.    

The Kicking Mule Hemp CBD Team creates reliably honest, high-potency, quality hemp sourced products manufactured with integrity and transparency.

Rich made career choices that place service and purpose higher than self and they have allowed him to contribute with satisfying result. Rich is as much a hands-on technician as a strategic planner. He builds machines and designs process. Rich uses hemp sourced cannabinoids every day and experiences strength and relief.

Sherry made career choices that uniquely qualify her to lead people and manufacture flawless products.

Together they have the vision to guide the Kicking Mule Team with passion and purpose to make best in class hemp sourced products available to the people. They celebrate using Hemp sourced CBD products every day and want to share.

Hemp to the People!