Our Story
Meet the owners
Matt Russell, Lab Director and CEO of Novas Labs LLC, Co-creator of Wellphora CBD products
Matt’s passion for helping others stems from a long career as a Fire Department Captain/Paramedic and Hazardous Materials Technician. As an educator in the Fire Service, he taught new fire recruits and salty veterans at the training academy about the hazards of smoke-related exposure, sleep deprivation and other toxic chemical exposures on the body. His own personal health journey and studies in the field of natural medicine and healing has transitioned him away from the pharmaceutical-driven Western medicine to a more holistic whole-body health approach.
Matt has evolved his teaching into guest speaking engagements around the country where he provides education about the interaction of Cannabis in the human body as well as other alternative healing remedies. Helping others and educating people on cannabinoids, natural healing, and alternative medicine has become the heart and soul of what Wellphora is all about.
The cannabis portion of his journey began years ago when his wife of 21 years, Stephanie, was looking for help with chronic back issues resulting from a back-injury sustained 25 years prior in a car accident. Stephanie had some initial success using CBD but had inconsistent results with differing brands and strengths. Thus began his research journey into the world of cannabinoids (CBD).
He quickly learned that there were limited, if any, regulations on CBD products. He began purchasing and lab testing retail products to determine what caused the inconsistent results he and his wife were experiencing. Those lab tests showed that several of the retail products tested contained harmful chemicals, metals and pesticides and revealed less CBD than the labeled amounts, or sometimes none at all.
Matt and Stephanie quit purchasing retail CBD products on the open market due to safety and quality concerns. He used his extensive knowledge in chemistry to create the absolute best organic, all-natural CBD products for his family and found amazing results and the recipe for success:
Matt’s work in developing this high-quality, all-natural product for his family eventually expanded to his sharing it with friends. He was soon encouraged to make his CBD available to the public, and it was recommended he begin at the local farmer’s market.
Matt partnered with a branding specialist, and Wellphora was born. Matt and his partner Scott created www.wellphora.com to make Wellphora CBD accessible across the country after a rousing success in the local farmer’s markets. Novas Labs, LLC now proudly manufactures and distributes Wellphora products all over the United States.
Scott Birdsall, VP Marketing, Wellphora
Branding and marketing are Scott’s specialty. He began in the corporate and advertising arena and expanded to establish his own branding and design firm, which has been in business for over 25 years.
The Wellphora partnership began when Matt engaged Scott for branding consultation for a contracting company he owned prior to Wellphora. They quickly developed a solid working relationship, so when Matt reached out to develop branding for his new all-natural organic CBD products, it was natural that they collaborated on the effort.
Scott has always put a high value on service and community, and after serving his country in the U.S. Army, has worked with many non-profit organizations as a design consultant. So, the key principles that Matt brought to the Wellphora project – education, quality, and service – made for a natural fit.
About our products
Wellphora’s Canneuro line of multi-strength CBD hemp oils, softgel capsules and gummies, along with our line of Thrivessence topical products, are designed to deliver the maximum benefits of hemp-derived CBD (“CBD-hd”) in a safe and healthy form. Our full-spectrum filtered hemp extracts come from organic aerial (above ground) hemp grown by experienced farmers using a natural, non-GMO plant cloning process which insures a consistently high-grade CBD-hd content with only trace amounts of THC.
The naturally cloned plants are farmed organically and harvested by selecting only the finest aerial parts of the hemp plant, and then processed for extracts using the most advanced, supercritical CO2 extraction process. This “green” process is the ideal, safe way to extract the hemp-derived CBD, flavonoids, terpenes, and other essential plant nutrient compounds, since the CO2 leaves no toxic, harmful residues, or environmental waste—effects that can be associated with alternative, solvent-based processing methods.
The final formulation of our Canneuro hemp oil uses a carrier with its own health benefits: organic MCT oil. While not the least expensive choice for a carrier ingredient, our MCT oil is extremely high-grade, being a 93% MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil.
The Wellphora team is currently working to expand our catalog of CBD-hd health-related items with a similar purpose: to provide people with access to the best in wellness products designed to enhance health and the enjoyment of everyday living.
It’s important that you trust your source
With so many different hemp-derived CBD products in the marketplace, it’s easy to end up wondering “what’s right for me?” Wellphora’s approach is to help with the decision-making process by offering a range of only the best-quality hemp-derived CBD options, so whatever fits your need, you can be confident that it comes from a trusted source. For more information on Wellphora product quality, visit our Quality page.