For Adam Rowe, trudging through wild manzanita and passing by bear-clawed utility poles is just another Thursday. Unpredictability is the norm for Rowe — a troubleman in Southern California Edison’s Redlands district and third generation employee.

“There’s a sense of adventure in what I do,” he said. “If I could easily do a task that becomes monotonous day in and day out, it wouldn’t be a fulfilling job.”

Rowe is typically first on-site to troubleshoot power outages or electrical emergencies. He determines whether he can safely make the repairs himself or if it’s a more extensive job that requires a line crew.

Troublemen usually spend their days solo, but solitude doesn’t bother Rowe whose self-reliance stems from a childhood of camping, hunting and even taking survival courses across California’s backcountry with his brothers. Those lessons come in handy when his job takes him to some peculiar places.

Today, his first service call required Rowe to investigate SCE poles in the Angelus Oak area — biologists with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that a bear clawed some nearby equipment.

Rowe went to inspect a few but knew that many more poles stretched down the slope. He would not be able to reach the remaining, faraway poles by foot on rough terrain and in the day’s 90-degree heat. Instead, he headed back to the truck, planning to call dispatch and recommend a safer patrol using a different access point in cooler temperatures.

Exploring bear territory is a relatively tame day for Rowe, who has worked through dozens of storms and unusual situations in his career. Retracing his steps to the truck, Rowe was surrounded by mountainsides marred from old storms he’s faced – the El Dorado Fire in 2020, Hurricane Hilary in 2023 and last year’s Line Fire.

Storms can be grueling for troublemen, who often work around the clock to repair damaged equipment and restore power safely and quickly. Despite the struggle, or maybe because of it, restoring power after wind, rain, snowstorms or wildfires are the calls Rowe finds most rewarding. Long before weathering these disasters himself, Rowe knew of the trade’s rigor from his grandfather’s and father’s stories, both former SCE employees.

“When everyone else wants to be in the house, curled up on a couch, that's when our workforce at SCE excels,” said Rowe. “I’ll probably do three calls today, but in a storm, I’ll do around 40 in a 24-hour shift.”

Most recently, Rowe gained firsthand experience of the devastation a storm can leave behind. The recent Apple Fire in 2020 destroyed some of his favorite possessions, including several cars and motorcycles he was working on. After clearing fire-charred possessions from his property, Rowe decided to start placing less value in the material and more in the intangible — relationships with his community of family, friends and customers.

“With everything going on in this world, you’ve got to remember the only people that you can affect are the people that you can personally talk to and interact with,” Rowe said.

For the day’s last call, Rowe met a customer who reported a transformer was making strange noises. After troubleshooting, Rowe determined the problem was internal. He requested that line crews replace the transformer, so by morning, the 40 homes relying on the equipment could awake with power as usual.

Though not every day brings the thrill of a storm, to Rowe, everyday counts.

“We can’t control the kinds of calls we will get, but we can control how that experience goes,” Rowe said. “It makes a big difference.”

To learn more about careers at SCE, visit edisoncareers.com.