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About Our Founder
Thomas "Tom" Piatkowski (currently President / CEO) has spent the last thirty years in the production agriculture industry. Although the majority of those years were spent developing inorganic fertilizer / pesticide technologies to improve conventional production, Tom dedicated a great deal of time focused on the use of ‘softer’ chemistries and biologically-based technologies.
As manager of Helena’s Bio Science and Biological Products in the U.S. and Mexico, Tom reviewed proprietary technologies for commercialization including those geared towards alternative crop production models. He performed comprehensive evaluations of established production models in an effort to provide conventional growers with tools to alleviate pressures caused by increasing regulation, resource limitations and rising costs.
As the trend towards sustainability (or “doing more with less”) progressed, Tom quickly realized that conventional producers lacked a viable way to participate in this trend – they didn’t have tools to transition their operations and overcome increasing industry pressures. Tom determined that the solution to meets these challenges centered on exploiting the natural relationships between soil and plants to increase resource efficiency (water, fertilizer, etc). So, Tom left Helena Chemical Co. in 2002 to develop these technologies under the company name Western Applied Technologies, Inc. (d/b/a HealthySoil).
Under Tom's leadership as CEO, HealthySoil has become a leading provider of innovative tools that enable a successful transition from conventional growing practices to methods that are effective, environmentally-friendly and economically-viable. HealthySoil now treats thousands of both agricultural and horticultural acres in California and Nevada with the same underlying goal: elevate the role of soil in the production process to lower production costs and increase profitability.
Tom is a licensed Agricultural Pest Control Advisor (PCA) in California. He holds a BA degree in Biology from Case Western Reserve University and an MS degree in Animal Nutrition from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Tom also spent three years stationed in Antigua, West Indies as a Livestock Officer with the U.S. Peace Corps. When not studying the wonders of soil science, Tom enjoys spending time with his daughter and black Labrador retriever "Mikey."