Jeff Rivera oversees Lineage’s operations across the organization as Chief Operating Officer & President Western US Operations. As Chief Operating Officer, he and his team are focused on creating operational excellence across the company through flawless execution, ensuring top-quality customer experience and making Lineage a great place to work. In his role as President of Western US Operations, Jeff further oversees Lineage operations in California, Colorado, Oregon, Texas and Washington State. Prior to joining the Lineage team, Jeff held several leadership positions at Con-Way Freight, Menlo Worldwide Logistics and General Motors. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Michigan Technical University and a Master’s degree from Stanford University.

What makes Lineage an exciting place to work?

Lineage’s awesome culture inspires me each day. I absolutely love that we’re a purpose-driven company. We come to work every day to transform the food supply chain to eliminate waste and help feed the world—that’s a big responsibility, and it inspires us to continuously improve as we care for our customers’ products. We’re making an impact in our communities every day, and the engagement of our teams at local food banks is awesome, infectious and humbling.

Our team is also deeply entrepreneurial, driven by our core values and future-focused in ways you just don’t find at every company. There’s an energy at Lineage that is unique, and I feel blessed to be a part of something so special.

If you had to deliver a message directly to our hourly warehouse team members, what would you say?

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! You are heroes of the cold chain! We have the best team members in the industry, and I’m blessed to work with you every day.

Also, when we speak to our values, we really believe in them. They’re not just wallpaper. I think about how I can live our values every day and try to recognize and consistently thank our leaders for doing the same. So, to our hardworking and dedicated team members, I stress the importance of living our values. Live them every day, and you’ll have a great career at Lineage.

We’re building something great here. We’re blessed to be in a thriving industry that has a natural tailwind. And we’re blessed with passionate owners and an awesome CEO who genuinely cares about people. We’re going to change the cold storage industry, and we want you to be a part of it!

What is a piece of professional advice you received from an impactful leader that you can share with others?

The people on the team who add real value to a company like ours are the team members touching the customer’s product. The rest of us add value to the company by helping to make life easier for those team members who are in the cold, on the front lines of handling customers’ products every day.

That means our decisions – from supervisors to the C-Suite – need to always be squarely focused on meeting the needs of our team members on the warehouse floor. If we fail to make the lives of our value-adding team members better, we fail the customers and we fail the company.

From our Leadership

Many companies pay lip service to ‘innovation,’ but few of them live that value as fully as we do here at Lineage. From our data science and IT teams to our operators on the warehouse floor, Lineage team members are driving revolutionary changes in how food gets to dinner tables around the world.

Jeff Rivera, Chief Operating Officer & President Western US Operations

What is your proudest achievement?

That’s an easy one—18+ years of marriage to my incredible wife, Marilyn, and my three incredible kids, Samantha, Roman and Madeline. Our family is passionate about supporting our local dog rescue. We’ve fostered 150+ dogs over the past 6 years. It’s normal to come home from a work trip to meet a new dog running around my house!