Paul Gaylon Biography
Paul likes to be on the cutting edge. President and founder of Herbal Products & Development, he has studied herbs and formulated innovative herbal products and whole-food concentrate blends for over 30 years. Through his extensive travels and ongoing learning, he has become very knowledgeable of both native and foreign herbs.
After studying the medicinal plants of many countries, Paul created the concept of a Natural First Aid Kit for travelers in 1991. The kit was the first of its kind in the United States. Seeing the need for high-energy nutrition for very active people, he also formulated and brought to the market a green superfood called Plant Power. He was the second person in the country to formulate a green superfood. Plant Power has now evolved into Supremely Green which contains over 35 carefully combined and extremely concentrated ingredients. Other well-known products developed by Paul include Power Plus (food enzymes), Friendly Colonizer (probiotics), Vita Power (vitamins & antioxidants), Macro-Night (macro-minerals), Flex-Connect Plus (for joint issues), Liver Restore, Mushroom Power Supreme, Global Male Tonic, pure-pressed Saw Palmetto, and Hempkin Fine Oil, a blend of premium Pumpkin and Hemp Oils. The full range of nutritional and natural products that Paul has developed and marketed include nutritional green foods, seed oil blends, enzymes, antioxidants, vitamin and mineral antioxidant blends, fluid extract herbal combinations, nutritional chocolates, probiotics, skincare products, concentrated powder blends, and bulk powder extracts. He actively sources out organic ingredients, wildcrafted herbs, and unique concentrates.
Herbal Products & Development is listed in various trade publications including Green Business Association, Natural Foods Merchandiser, and Herbal Green Pages. Herbal Products & Development's website, herbprod.com, is an online store with a wealth of information on every product ingredient and their uses in health articles and profiles on each product. Many savory recipes can be found on the website. Paul continues to develop new products while researching new developments on herbal and health frontiers.
Paul has been instrumental in introducing new foods, food preparation techniques, and dietary programs to the market. He has worked with many associates on these projects. He has been a consultant on the development and marketing of many supplements, skincare, and nutritional products. As a result, Paul has become accomplished at understanding all nutrient and product components before bringing products to market — from research to formulation, to sourcing and production, and then to marketing. His company does private labeling for other companies. He is committed to educating people on nutritional and medicinal topics through his company’s website and printed documentation and through other forms of sharing which often is simply his warm willingness to confer with people directly.
Clinical studies, finishing in 2010, have been conducted at medical centers on a variety of selected HP&D products including Flex-Connect Plus used with MSM-Vitamin C, Liver Restore, Power Plus, Vita Power, Macro-Night, Gluco-Low Balance, Golden Lite (chocolate with nutrients), a high grade of pure-pressed Saw Palmetto, and Supremely Green. The results have been overwhelmingly positive. The clinical study on Flex-Connect with MSM-Vitamin C has been published in the Townsend medical journal. There is a link to this article and to the other clinical summaries of these studies on the website.
Over the years, Paul has assumed many leadership and project coordinating roles in local and regional organizations, at events, and at numerous conferences. He has made various public statements on subjects such as freedom of individual and public health choice issues, water quality, the environment, and social justice. He has developed fruitful networking skills which he regularly uses. He has given talks at health food stores and other places of business and has been a guest on public television, radio shows, and podcasts. He has added his creative food preparations to many local food group events. He has acted as a consultant in various contexts for the natural food, hemp, and environmental communities.
Paul integrates innovative ideas in other areas too such as building, carpentry, house design, and landscaping including permaculture. His own gardens utilize land contouring, natural drainage, terracing, mulching systems, and the integration of natural and recycled materials such as wood, stone, plants, and sculptures. His permaculture skills were boosted when he took an intensive course with David Blume of the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture and author of the book “Alcohol Can Be A Gas.” Paul continues to attend permaculture teachings and events and is a strong advocate for permaculture food forests.
A major project directed by Paul in the spring of 1998 was the Santa Cruz Industrial Hemp Expo, the largest event of its kind in the country with 6,500 people attending. It was very successful and brought together businesses and individuals on the cutting edge of the expanding hemp market. Out of that event emerged a one-hour documentary video, “Hemp Hemp Hooray – The Growing Industrial Hemp Market,” about the Expo and the enormous potential of industrial hemp. Paul was a contributing partner and co-director of the documentary along with the excellent videographer L.B. Johnson. Its premiere showing took place in September 1999 at the Vets Hall in Santa Cruz, CA. The DVD can be found in many libraries and is now on YouTube. You can also find it as a link on his unifiedcommunity.info website in the Industrial Hemp/Videos category.
Paul also consulted with the Coalition for Agricultural & Industrial Renewal (C.A.I.R) by helping organize a fund-raising event to support a California assembly bill for renewing the legal status of industrial hemp. He also, along with a number of hemp businesses and California granges, helped organize a benefit concert in Sacramento, CA in 2014 to promote industrial hemp. The intent of all these efforts has been to bring greater attention to the amazing benefits of hemp and its connection to ecological sustainability, natural health, and global change. Paul's website, unifiedcommunity.info, contains hundreds of links to online information about industrial hemp, medicinal marijuana, CBDs, and cannabis.
Additional projects that Paul was involved with include organizing a panel to discuss organic foods and fiber processing at the Eco-Farm Conference in January 2000, helping with the Gaia Song Sustainable Living and Ecological Building Conference in Santa Cruz in 2002, co-directing Synergy Party events in 2002 which combined music and networking to help local non-profit groups share ideas, Spring into Summer Fest in 2012 which was a successful community fundraiser for the Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF) and featured 75 vendors, musicians, and speakers on four stages. Paul also maintains a membership in the Santa Cruz Live Oak Grange which is part of a national organization to promote family farms, organic farming, and sustainable agriculture.
In addition to his company’s website, herbprod.com, Paul created unifiedcommunity.info which is a directory of links to over 2,000 websites and online information on 100+ topics dedicated to achieving a sustainable, environmentally responsible and just world. Another website of his, exploringbotanicals.com, is a work in progress and is envisioned to be a worldwide plant catalog showcasing his large photo collection of plants photographed locally and around the world. The website currently has a list of worldwide botanical gardens and useful plant-related links.
One of Paul’s most recent projects was assisting Whiskey Hill Farms, a local, sustainable, organic farm, with marketing and sales of turmeric and their other crops as well as acquiring seed stock and cuttings. The chopped and juiced turmeric roots, shoots, and flowers from the turmeric plants grown at Whiskey Hill Farms are used in one of Herbal Product & Development's newest fluid extracts, Turmeric Gold.
Paul’s other hobbies and interests include snorkeling, plant identification nature walks, photography, and wildcrafting herbs. Paul enjoys collecting, growing, and sharing tropical seed stocks of peppers, fruits, vegetables, and vine crops. He likes to volunteer his first aid and nutritional know-how at music and cultural events when he is available. In 2008, Paul became actively involved in promoting biodiesel, ethanol fuel conversion, and byproduct utilization as sustainable energy sources and for other uses. While in India that year, he visited various facilities that utilized these practices. His travels allowed him to also visit with traditional Ayurveda practitioners, traditional and modern herbal facilities, farms, gardens, crop production areas, and an organic sugar cane facility with multiple byproducts.
Paul has always been and continues to be dedicated to discovering and implementing new concepts in health, nutrition, and herbology. Paul is a firm advocate of educating people to empower them and allow them to make informed decisions about their health and other important aspects of their lives. His hope is that in the future the world will see more multidisciplinary healing retreats, health centers, and community improvement projects.