Growing Together Fall 2019

Growing Together Fall 2019 - Celebrating 50 Years with Employee Joe Silveira

Joe Silveira has been with the company since the beginning and has seen the business evolve and grow for the last 50 years.



July 1969, fresh out of the military 22-year-old Joe moved back home to the Sacramento Delta to establish his roots. During this time, he also began his lifelong employment to what was then called, Harvey Lyman Chemicals in Walnut Grove, CA. Harvey Lyman Chemicals was one of the original locations Harvey Lyman started in the 1950s which currently operates as Grow West®.

Joe Silveira celebrates 50 years with Grow West.

For 50 years Joe has watched the company grow from a single location with 20 employees serving growers throughout the Sacramento Delta to a company with 20 locations and over 300 employees serving growers throughout Northern California.

Joe started his career taking care of dispatch, purchasing, and inventory management. After about a year, Harvey Lyman slowly involved Joe with accounting by having him do monthly inventory evaluations by hand. Harvey quickly became not only a teacher to Joe but a mentor and a true friend. “I remember when the company got its first computer and our first software, Quantal. Fun fact, that software was the same one the 49ers used,” said Joe. With time Joe continued to gain more accounting roles and grow with the company and eventually became the CFO where he was able to create a finance team.

Beyond accounting, Joe has held many positions ranging from dispatch, purchasing and PCA to accounting, CFO and now Corporate Secretary. He has been a part of many significant company milestones and is a true historian for the company.

When reminiscing about the company’s foundation and leadership over the years, Joe states, “Harvey was the founder and laid the ground work for the company”. Joe believes Les Lyman (Chairman and former CEO) had the vision and Johnny Council (Vice Chairman and former CEO) helped complete the vision and grow the company. “I was always there to mold and helped in any way accounting needed to adjust as the company grew. [Now present day] Ernie Roncoroni has had great mentors and continues to adjust and mold the company to serve our growers to the best of our abilities”.

Grow West would like to thank Joe for being a part of our family for 50 years!