Lester L. ‘Roy’ Oliver; Retired Partner in Accounting Firm
Lester L. “Roy” Oliver, a retired partner of an accounting firm, died Wednesday in Thousand Oaks. He was 61.
He was born Nov. 4, 1938, in Kansas City, Mo., the son of a Hills Bros. Coffee executive who was transferred often. He lived in Salt Lake City, Chicago, San Francisco, New Jersey and then moved back to the Chicago area where he graduated from high school in Park Forest, Ill.
He was a mathematics major at Iowa State University. For two years after college, he worked at Banker’s Life, an insurance company in Des Moines.
Oliver began working for Osheimer & Co. Inc. in Los Angeles after moving to Sierra Madre about 1961. Within a short time, he moved his family to Westlake Village.
In 1964, KPMG acquired the Osheimer company and he continued working for the firm for the next 33 years. He was a national partner in charge of compensation and benefits at KPMG Peat Marwick in Los Angeles.
His job involved structuring retirement plans, profit-sharing plans and other forms of compensation for clients, as well as members of KPMG. He was also considered an authority on executive compensation dealing with capital accumulation and merger-related arrangements. His client list included Western Airlines, America West Airlines, Lear Siegler and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Oliver was involved in the community and served on the federated affairs committee of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles County Health Systems Agency’s certificate of need committee and on the board of directors of the Lark Ellyn Home for Boys.
Oliver was campaign chairman for United Way of Ventura County during the 1997-98 campaign. He and Spencer Garrett volunteered to fill the post of chief financial officer at no cost to United Way at a time when the charity was in a financial crunch because of unpaid pledges.
He also was on the board of directors at Bright Horizons.
Friends often said that Oliver’s second home was the tennis court. He enjoyed tennis and had recently taken up golf.
Oliver is survived by daughters Karyn Spear of Bozeman, Mont., and Leslie Oliver of Thousand Oaks; mother and father Jane and Lester Oliver of Thousand Oaks, brother Mark of Lake Forest, Ill., and one grandson, Colin Spear.
Services are scheduled at noon today at Ascension Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks with Rev. Willis Moerer officiating. Burial will be private.
Arrangements are under the direction of Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Mortuary in Westlake Village.
