Elev8 is a family of lifestyle brands united behind the common belief that we should always strive for a higher state of mind, body, and spirit. Elev8 brands aim to achieve this goal by developing and delivering high quality products and services that our customers will be proud to utilize. Elev8 brands understand that there is always room for improvement and that self-reflection and refinement is the best way to accomplish this. 

Here at Elev8 we have this code of conduct because we believe in it. We feel by adhering to these codes of conduct we will build the billion dollar company we have envisioned. The general intent of writing a code of conduct is to be able to hold each other accountable when something happens in the course of business. All of these items have been agreed upon by the collective employees of Elev8 Glass Gallery.

Using Vaporizers for dry herbs started becoming popular in the early 2000’s. The Silver Surfer  was born in 2004 by a younger fella named Steve Kelnhofer.  He had an idea about how to make vaporizers even better than they were. Steve gathered some materials that he knew were the best around and got to work. He found help from friends and family. 

Even his mother gave a hand holding the tubing while he cut it for the idea.  Out came the very first Silver Surfer Vaporizer. In the beginning, most of the Surfers Steve built right out of his garage and would even meet customers in the Home Depot parking lot. He had to teach himself glass as at the time, there just were not a lot of local glass blowers. 

From the garage, we evolved into small 1500 industrial space that became a world-renowned Head Shop now called Elev8 presents HEMP (Higher Elevation Masterpiece Productions). We outgrew that space and had to upgrade to a 5,000 sq ft. facility where all the vaporizers were assembled leaving behind the glass studio at hemp to also further expand that area. 

Eventually, in 2013 we moved to our new home and our glass studio moved out of HEMP and went into the old production warehouse.  We now have one of the nicest art glass facilities called Elev8 Premier in the USA with 10 bench stations and 3 lathes.  With some expansion and life-changing Elev8 Glass was formed to give the glass crew their own identity and the Elev8 ideas were starting to solidify. 

The Name ELEV8

As the name Elev8 evolved years later, Elev8 became Elev8 Premier.  Arguably one of the best glass studios in the country, making some of the most functional, and artisan pieces on the scene. 7th Floor went threw good and bad times and became Elev8 Distribution in 2018. 

The vaporizer brand has grown to include 8-different vaporizers in its catalog. As we realized it's more than a great product, we want to educate people on the alternative lifestyle.  Today we have evolved our sales into grass roots “Elev8 Ambassadors”.  As a caring company, we want to take the time to advise consumers and provide them with the knowledge they need to make better cannabis decisions and we started Elev8 University. We thank Steve for his vision of the future, and where our industry needed to evolve to.

It all began with Steve’s love for his vaporizer. Steve was a journeyman electrician. One day a punk ass kid threw a gun in his front yard, hours later, the cops were knocking on his door. Back in 2002, cannabis was very frowned upon.

Well Steve had a couple of personal plants growing. Paranoid, he refused to answer the door for the cops. He began to put his plants down the garbage disposal. Long story short, he couldn't keep the cops out forever. He got busted for growing cannabis. At the time he was working on Schriever Air Force Base. The company he was working for had a zero-tolerance policy.

He, therefore, got laid off. Steve was kind of at a standstill. One of his great friends worked for Eldorado, a sex toy company. Steve built a dropship website and called it Sex Sellz. Steve has a very good thing going for him. He was on the first page of google when you searched Sex Toys. Life was good. He once had a customer complaint about the name, because someone's wife found the package from “Sex Sellz”. Steve decided to change the company's name to 7th Floor LLC.

He was watching a random episode of friends, and they got off of the elevator on the 7th floor. Being German he already liked the number 7, so this just stuck. Months later, Google changed its algorithm. He went from being on the first page of google to the 10th. This really did a number for steve. Steve had to figure out a new means of income. Like I said in the beginning, Steve loved his vaporizer. There was one problem, IT WAS SUPER UNRELIABLE!

The heating element would never last more than a few months for him. He thought to himself! There's got to be a better way! One day the design of the Silver Surfer popped into his head. He got the materials he needed. He asked his mom to help him cut the first tube, so she held it as he cut it, and thus the shape finally began to take hold. The machine named itself. There was a problem. He needed glass. The heater cover and wand weren't going to make themselves.

He went to a few glass blowers in town to ask them for help. He got turned down by all of them. This didn't stop Steve. He bought himself a contemporary glass blowing volume one by Bandhu Dunham. He bought himself a torch, glasses and some raw glass. He taught himself how to make the parts necessary for the Silver Surfer Vaporizer, out of his own house. The vaporizer finally began to take hold. Steve found a few employees off of craigslist.

They began to build silver surfers in his basement. He would sell them off of craigslist, out of a home depot parking lot. As the company began to grow, Steve built a shed in his backyard. He hired a few more employees. Steve needed a way to make his product reliable, and as affordable as possible. He took himself to China. All by himself in China, Steve found some good connections to get affordable aluminum housing that would come pre cut.

(Steve we will leave out the part where you got sick for a week from bad parts ;-) The Silver Surfer is made in the USA with foreign parts. Like a ford car. As the company began to grow and grow, Steve found himself in need of a bigger warehouse. He found the building that Hemp is currently in.

They turned the back room into the warehouse, and the middle room glass blowing. The front room was an old showroom for a stamped concrete company. They left this room empty. One day Steve was walking through the mall and seen that the Disney store was going out of business. They had display cases for sale. He bought a few of them, and put them in the empty room they had. Once the guys skill level was there, they started to make pipes and fill the cases. He decided to turn this small space into a head shop!

Why not right?! Hemp he wanted to call it. He needed an acronym for every letter. They came up with Higher Elevations Masterpiece Productions. They were stoked if they got one customer a week! Slowly as word of mouth grew, Hemp became a recognizable name. Elev8 was growing like crazy, just like hemp was. Steve decided someone might knock off his product. So what did he do? He knocked himself off! Creating the Da Buddha Vaporizer. Eventually, the warehouse was too large to stay in hemps building.

So they moved it over to Woolsey Heights. Steve was in this building for under a year, he eventually found a building across the way for sale. Buying was a much better option than renting, so he purchased it! They turned what used to be the warehouse in the back of hemp into more glass blowing. This was a wonderful setup.

The glass blowers would help the customer that came into hemp when the cashier wasn’t available. Once the glass blowers' skills got to a certain level, they were much more efficient with their time. They were able to make pipes on their spare time, thus Elev8 Glass was born.  After a few years, hemp had more employees, and Elev8 had to many glass blowers to count. Elev8 also had way more products than they could keep up with.

Steve eventually came up with the Life Saber Vaporizer, The Super Surfer Vaporizer, and the Sidekick. Not to mention Trim Pro Elite, Elev8 at home, Enjoy, and much more. We kept tripping all over each other, in the same building. Steve found another building and decided to purchase it. We moved the warehouse into that building off of aviation way. We then turned the warehouse into a full-blown glass-blowing facility. Hemp became the main storage to start saving for another head shop.

The perfect opportunity arose, and Elev8 Glass Gallery was born. Now we have 4 buildings. Elev8 presents Hemp, Elev8 Glass Gallery, The Studio which is Elev8 Premier, and then Elev8 Distribution. There is so much passion that goes into all the products we make, and we stand behind them 100%!!!