A veterinarian who opened his clinic the same year he earned his doctorate has spent six decades building something that reaches far beyond Simi Valley — and the land is finally telling the story.
(CLAIR | Simi Valley, CA) — In 1963, Dr. Lowell Novy earned his doctorate in veterinary medicine from Kansas State University and opened Simi Valley Veterinary Clinic in the same year. Most people would have called that enough. Novy was just getting started. More than six decades later, that clinic still serves Simi Valley. And 500 miles north, across 2,000 acres in the Shasta Valley, Novy manages a working cattle ranch that sits at the base of China Peak — on land that county officials once called among the poorest soil in all of Siskiyou County. That soil now produces at a high level. That is the whole story, compressed into one sentence. The rest takes six decades to tell.
Novy grew up with a clear sense of direction. He never saw himself in medical school. Veterinary medicine fit his values, and he followed it without hesitation. He opened his Simi Valley clinic immediately after earning his degree, building a practice that took root in a community that was still finding its own shape. As Simi Valley grew, the clinic grew with it. Novy also extended his work into Ventura County's broader animal welfare system, supporting efforts to reduce euthanasia rates and improve outcomes for animals across the region. His reach went further than the exam room.
By 1976, he was ready to take that same commitment to the land. He acquired ranch properties in Northern California's Shasta Valley and began building a program shaped by his veterinary background and his understanding of how animals and land interact. He moved away from feedlot systems and built a grass-fed cattle operation designed to work with the land rather than deplete it. His beef carried less saturated fat and fewer calories than corn-fed alternatives while maintaining a strong lean protein profile. He built a direct market for it. Customers came from long distances and bought in bulk — sometimes spending more than $1,500 at a time.
That business ran for 15 years. Then regional packing plants began to fail, and one by one the infrastructure that supported his direct market collapsed. Novy shut down the meat business. His cattle now move through auction channels. The model changed. His commitment to the land did not.
Today, the ranch holds about 300 mother cows. But the cattle tell only part of what the land has become. When Novy arrived in 1976, one pair of sandhill cranes nested on the property. Now four breeding pairs nest there. Great blue herons move through the fields. Bees, birds, and insects fill the land in numbers that reflect the health of the soil beneath them. The same ground county officials wrote off as nearly worthless now supports a balanced, working ecosystem built through steady, deliberate management over decades.
Novy has placed the 2,000 acres into contracts that prevent subdivision. The decision removes the land permanently from short-term development pressure and locks it into a plan built for continuity. It is not a financial play. It is a statement about what the land is for and how long that purpose should last.
He explains his life's work through a framework that moves in three stages. First comes separation — stepping forward to begin. Then comes the work itself, where knowledge builds through action. Finally comes responsibility, where that knowledge must serve something larger than the person who holds it. For Novy, that third stage now defines everything. The clinic in Simi Valley represents responsibility to a community. The ranch in the Shasta Valley represents responsibility to the land. Both have been running simultaneously for decades.
Back in Simi Valley, the clinic continues its daily work — connecting Novy to the community that has watched him build his career across two regions and two very different landscapes. He splits his time between both, tending each with the same patience that turned bad soil into productive ground.
What Novy has built does not fit neatly into one category. He is a veterinarian, a rancher, a land steward, and a Simi Valley institution. He has operated a local clinic for over 60 years and managed a working ranch for nearly 50. He built a business, lost its infrastructure, and adapted without losing direction. He took land that experts dismissed and turned it into something that now sustains wildlife, cattle, and a long-term agricultural future.
Simi Valley has produced many people who built something lasting. Dr. Lowell Novy is one of them. His clinic still opens its doors. His land still produces. And the work he put in motion decades ago continues to grow — quietly, steadily, the way all things do when someone builds them right.
