Who & What is Elev8?

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American Built Quality & Durability

 

Building our dream in Colorado Springs since 2004.  As a past union electrician Steve took his training, love of cannabis and 

Our Mission


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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. 

 

Our Code of Conduct

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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.

  • Quality - Success begins with quality.

  • Pride - Show pride in and loyalty to Elev8

  • Integrity - Integrity is the consistent adherence to the social standards and moral values that are set forth in society.

  • Teamwork - We are a team, the greater the team the greater the company!

  • Patience - We are a growing company and there will always be growing pains, but with the pains, we will build opportunities

  • Respect:

    • Co-workers - When in the workplace follow the simple rule: if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.

    • Self-respect - Don't do anything to yourself that prevents you from doing the best job possible, or just being the best person possible.

    • Personal Accountability - If anything that is undesirable happens and you are responsible for it, you must take responsibility for it.

    • Humble and Grateful - If you have concerns about being able to complete a task, ask someone that will be able to answer your questions. Also be grateful for the things you are provided within life and professionally.

  • Customers - With everything we do in the course of the day we must keep the customer in mind.

  • Honesty - If you can't be honest with yourself you most likely won't be able to be honest with your coworkers. Sometimes it may hurt but in the long run, it hurts less than bullshitting.

  • Continue to Improve - There will always be room for improvement, be it a process, or an aspect of your personal life, never stop growing, never stop getting better.

  • Positive Attitude - Employees should come into work placing their best foot forward, it will elevate the mood of all of those around you and create a better overall environment.

Our Brands

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Our flagship organization was started by Steve Kelnhofer in a small garage in 2004 in order to manufacture and distribute the Silver Surfer Vehicle (SSV), our flagship product. Elev8 Distribution now operates out of a production and fulfillment warehouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Many of our longtime customers will know us as 7th Floor Vaporizers but Elev8 Distribution is a new entity with an Elev8ed view on life and our products. Elev8 Distribution is responsible for fulfilling orders from Elev8GlassGallery.com as well as manufacturing all of our Elev8 Vehicles products including the Silver Surfer Vehicle, Super Surfer Vehicle, Da Buddha Vehicle, Sidekick Portable Vehicle, and the ELEV8R! We also handcraft all of our Simply-Soluble products at this facility, as well as the Trunk by Dub Saq!

  • Elev8 Glass Gallery

The brick-and-mortar retail division of Elev8 started with a small shop called Higher Elevations Masterpiece Productions (H.E.M.P.) which is located on the east side of Colorado Springs. We later opened a second store in downtown Colorado Springs called Elev8 Glass Gallery. When we began uniting our brands under the Elev8 trademark H.E.M.P. was renamed to Elev8 Glass Gallery East, and the downtown store became Elev8 Glass Gallery West. 

Elev8 Premier is both the name of our glassblowing studio in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as the brand name used for all of the handcrafted and artistic glass creations which are produced by the Elev8 Premier studio. Elev8 Premier consists of a team of skilled glassblowers who produce all of the borosilicate glass components for our Elev8 Vehicles products. Elev8 Premier glassblowers also handcraft high quality production pipes and rigs, heady pipes and rigs, cremation memorial art, and any other creations that they can come up with! Elev8 Premier offers Liquid Arts Experience glassblowing classes for beginners, and experienced blowers can rent booth space and pick up tips and tricks from our highly skilled team. Some of our renters have even become Elev8 Premier glassblowers themselves. Dozens of glassblowers have started their careers at the Elev8 Premier studio, and Elev8 Premier has built quite a reputation for itself in the Colorado glassblowing community. 

Elev8 Glass is a team of highly skilled foreign artisan glassblowers who design and manufacture our budget line of glass products. Many of these foreign artisans come from families that have been blowing glass for multiple generations. When you buy an Elev8 Glass water pipe you are getting a high quality product at a more affordable price, but don’t let the price fool you! Elev8 Glass pieces are still entirely handcrafted using the same methods and techniques which are common to all borosilicate lampworkers.  All Elev8 Glass also can be upgraded with the Phoenix Oath Glass Warranty.  

Do you like deals!  Save 55% when you sign up as an Elev8 Ambassador rep.  Elev8 Ambassadors are representatives for the Elev8 lifestyle, and our Ambassadors help us spread the word about our many products and services by reaching out to people and organizations in their respective communities who might benefit from the products and services that we offer. The Elev8 Ambassador program is divided into three tiers depending on the Ambassador’s level of involvement, with the highest tier earning sales commissions for any wholesale orders which they facilitate. 

Elev8 Veterans is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to helping military veterans who are facing the difficult transition of returning to civilian life. Elev8 Veterans hopes to achieve this mission by giving military veterans tools that can help them rehabilitate and adjust to society outside of the armed forces, often through alternative therapies like medical cannabis and therapeutic activities like glassblowing. Elev8 Veterans regularly organizes events to spread awareness about the condition of military veterans in society. Glassblowers who attend their monthly First Saturday events can create pieces which are given to Elev8 Veterans as tax-deductible donations, and Elev8 Veterans sells the donated glass to generate funding for their mission. Elev8 Veterans also works to provide veterans free or affordable access to safe cannabis vaporizers made by Elev8 Vehicles, like the Silver Surfer Vehicle, and Elev8 Veterans works with Elev8 Premier to provide free glassblowing classes to military veterans as a form of alternative therapy. This allows veterans to find a healthy creative outlet while also giving them access to a potential source of needed income.

Elev8 University is a comprehensive teaching tool designed to educate customers, staff, and our partners about Elev8, the products that we make, the services that we provide, and the cannabis and glassblowing industries in general. This is a great program for anyone who is taking on a new job in our industry, and the course will get you up to speed on all the industry standards and established terminology.  Take it to the next level of education with our Wholesale Elev8 University.

Elev8 Presents is our media production brand, focusing on marketing materials and educational materials for the general public. Elev8 Presents has an extensive catalog of videos which are available through their YouTube channel as well as through their website, including instructional videos, product highlights, function videos, product reviews, lifestyle videos, vlogs, and interviews. 

Dub Saq is an Elev8 brand that focuses on creating fashionable, high quality storage bags and containers. The vaporizers manufactured by Elev8 Vehicles are famously packaged in durable carrying bags which were specially designed for our desktop vapor delivery vehicles. The original Silver Surfer Vehicle bag was the inspiration behind the first Dime Bags, and when Elev8 separated from Dime Bags we began exploring the possibility of creating our own line of aesthetically pleasing and durable storage bags and containers. Dub Saq aims to create the best and most beautiful bags and containers, like The Trunk which is hand cut and assembled from quality hardwood ply here at the Elev8 Distribution facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

Simply-Soluble is a health, wellness, and beauty brand that was born from the creation of a unique water-soluble CBD formula which, as the name suggests, was simply soluble in just about anything. Simply-Soluble CBD can be used to infuse CBD into drinks, foods, lotions, topical salves, there are too many options to list! Simply-Soluble also produces a wide range of health and beauty products which are available with or without their signature CBD solution. 

Elev8 Pizza Co. is a new brand which we created for our first ever food truck! Elev8 Pizza Co. is setting itself apart from the pack by offering the world’s first true smoked pizza, a process which we’ve perfected and an amazing flavor which we want to bring to the world. For now Elev8 Pizza Co. only operates in the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado, but one day we hope to expand Elev8 Pizza Co. into more cities, with a fleet of trucks and a heap of smoked pizzas for the masses. 

 

Our History

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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. 

 

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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. 

 

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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%!!!

 

 

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