Owner
james@harvust.com
I grew up in a farming community in Oregon, which gave me early exposure to how agricultural operations actually work. While studying at the University of Washington, I spent two summers interning at Nelson Irrigation in Walla Walla, where I saw firsthand how much operational burden growers carry—especially around labor and compliance. Those experiences made it clear that many core farm workflows were still being managed with outdated tools.
The following two summers, I worked at Quantopian, a quantitative hedge fund startup in Boston. There, I learned how software, data, and incentives can dramatically improve efficiency in complex systems—and how startups can apply those ideas to industries that haven’t historically benefited from modern tooling.
After returning to the agricultural world, I founded Harvust to apply those lessons to farm labor management. The goal was straightforward: reduce administrative friction for growers and create clearer, more reliable systems for the people who work for them.
As Harvust has grown, I’ve tried to stay close to the field. Each year I spend time working in. my customer's fields with their workers to understand where our software helps—and where it doesn’t. That feedback loop is critical to building tools that are actually useful in agriculture, not just well-intentioned.