Samuel Eliot Weber

Samuel Eliot Weber was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia on July 23, 1992, to Kristen Thompson Weber and William Henry Weber IV. He died at the age of 30 on August 26, 2022, in Denver, Colorado with his loving wife Lucy by his side.

There are two important things you need to know about Sam: he unconditionally loved his wife, family, friends, and Hooch, his giant goldendoodle, and was driven to excel in all areas, particularly in his professional life.

As the second of six children, Sam's devotion to family, along with his competitive nature, began at birth. He and his older brother, Will, developed an incredibly close bond. However, this relationship did not dampen Sam's enthusiasm for the arrival of his two younger brothers and then two younger sisters. In short, Sam treasured his role in his big family. The family dinner table was a place for laughter, arguments, deep discussions, and the occasional lecture; dinner often included one or more of Sam's best friends. Weber family adventures were punctuated by vacations in the "big red van." These trips were filled with games, stories, and the Weber children piled onto the seats, tangled up in blankets and pillows. Sam especially looked forward to the annual trip to Hilton Head Island (where his birthday was always celebrated) because he was surrounded by his people: grandparents, his aunt, uncle, and cousins. Sam loved being surrounded by people but could also take joy in solitude, from playing alone in the sand box as a child, to finding-during his years in the Air Force-one of his favorite places in the world, a secret sandbar off the coast of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Sam had the gift of social gravity. He brought together a diverse network of friends wherever he went. During his days at Columbia University, he united friends from his years in the U.S. Air Force, his high school friends from Atlanta, and even friends from Camp Alpine where he spent many summers, eventually becoming the "Chief" of his tribe, the Mohawks. He took joy in maintaining relationships, grabbing every opportunity he could to bring people together. He was not just part of the crowd; he assembled the crowd.

After graduating from Pope High School in Cobb County, Georgia, with what he described as a "lackluster GPA balanced by a great social life," Sam decided to expand his horizons by joining the Air Force. When his recruiter asked him why the Air Force, he responded, "Because it's the least military of the military branches." The recruiter just laughed and signed him up. It was at this point that Sam also made a commitment to himself which would become his second defining characteristic: "I would never again let underachieving restrict my potential." He didn't.

Sam's four years in the Air Force as a C-17 Loadmaster allowed him to explore the world from his home base in Anchorage, Alaska. He spent time in twenty-one countries, deployed to Kyrgyzstan, transported thousands of coalition troops throughout combat zones, transported helicopters for international sale, brought humanitarian aid into the Philippines, and mediated discussions between the United States Secret Service and Indian customs officials in New Delhi. He relished telling the story of a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who-outranking Sam in most circumstances by more than a decade of experience-tried to tell Sam how Sam's C-17 was going to be loaded. "Look, Gunny," Sam said, "You have two choices: you can do this my way or you can stay here on the tarmac in Afghanistan." The Gunny was enraged. And loaded the plane exactly as Sam instructed. Before the end of his enlistment, Sam was awarded The Air Force Achievement Medal, The United States of America Air Medal, and-the award he was most proud of-the 2013 3rd Operations Group Warrior of the Year for which he was nominated by his military peers.

As his enlistment drew to a close, Sam knew it was time for college. He always wanted to go to school in New York City, and after strengthening his academic legs at City College, he transferred to Columbia University where he graduated magna cum laude in 2018. Most importantly, he met his future wife, Lucy Hebb, on St. Patrick's Day (obviously, most romantic night of the year) in 2016, while she was working at Manhattan Marketing Ensemble following her graduation from Sewanee. Their first camping experience together was a disaster: after a Phish music festival was canceled at the last minute because of a Legionnaires' outbreak in upstate New York in 2018, they had to quickly find an alternate place to camp. They chose poorly, putting up their tent on a low-lying piece of ground that was soon flooded, and Lucy swallowed a bee that stung her in the mouth. Despite this, they persevered and have risen to high-level camping expertise: one of Lucy's friends recently said, "I love camping with them! They bring all the sauces."

Sam had no intention of following a traditional career path and planned from early in his college career to move to Colorado to work in the cannabis industry. After graduation, he and Lucy made their way west, relocating to Denver and adopted their wonderful dog, Hooch. They were married on September 21, 2020, in a private ceremony after having their beautifully planned wedding canceled twice by the pandemic. Sam and Lucy loved Colorado and-exercising their increasingly sophisticated skills-spent many weekends camping in the mountains together with family, friends, and Hooch.

After two years of important learning as the Director of Marketing at a Denver start-up focused on clean cannabis, Sam felt it was time to strike out on his own. He deeply researched areas in need of business model innovation and founded Top Tree Herbs in 2020, self-funding the launch of the world's first kratom tea company.

Sam was passionate about normalizing this traditional tea leaf so that those who needed it could be helped. Kratom offers relief to people with various forms of chronic pain and opioid dependency, as well as mood disorders and concentration issues. Led by Sam, Top Tree Herbs helped hundreds of wounded veterans and people with disabilities through tea donations to the Adaptive Training Foundation in Denton, Texas. He was also instrumental in supporting veterans with PTSD through the Veteran's Walk and Talk organization. Sam was active in getting the Colorado State government to pass the Kratom Consumer Protection Act, which solidified the right of Coloradans to access kratom. Under his direction, Top Tree Herbs' worked with leading researchers at a major research university to conduct the largest kratom tea survey in history. Sam's legacy of compassion lives on in the business he built. At the time of Sam's death, Top Tree Herbs was preparing for a Series A funding round.

Sam was a beloved son, husband, grandson, brother, cousin, and friend. He is survived by his wife, Lucy Hebb Weber; his parents, Bill and Kristen Weber (St. Paul); his five siblings, Will (Los Angeles), Jack (Denver), Zeke (St. Paul), Kate (Paris), and Eleanor (Atlanta); both his grandmothers, Gail Weber Mewborn of Atlanta, Georgia, and Susan Washington of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania; his uncles Tim (Tampa), Stephan, and William (both of Reading, Pennsylvania); and many cousins. This page will be updated when Sam's cause of death has been determined.

Sam will be remembered at an in-person and virtual memorial service in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday, September 10, 2022. In lieu of flowers, Lucy requests that donations be made to the Adaptive Training Foundation in Denton, Texas (adaptivetrainingfoundation.org).

Sam's family would deeply appreciate the sharing stories and pictures of Sam in the comments.