Joy Beckerman is the Founder & Principal of Hemp Ace International, a New York-based consulting, legal support, expert witness, and brokerage firm serving the global community. She is the Vice President of the Hemp Industries Association, founded in 1994 and sits on the National Board of Directors of NORML, founded in 1970. After opening the first hemp store in the State of New York in the early 1990’s, Joy served as Secretary to the Vermont Hemp Council upon passage of the inaugural Vermont hemp bill in 1996. In mid-1998, she commenced an extensive dual career as a compliance and complex civil litigation paralegal, supporting some of the West Coast’s most distinguished attorneys. Joy is an internationally respected voice, writer and renowned public speaker on a spectrum of industrial hemp and Cannabis Movement(s) subjects who has presented at continuing legal education seminars and at numerous colleges, universities, and conferences over the last nearly quarter of a century. She also works directly with lawmakers and regulators, both proactively and upon request.