Born in Arkansas and raised in the tiny town of Cochise, Arizona, Adam is no stranger to wide open spaces and hard work. As Site Construction Manager at Pattern Energy on the Arizona side of the SunZia project, today that work spans more than 500 miles but is less than 20 minutes from his hometown.
“I grew up in the county,” he says. “The nearest town was 17 miles away, and that one only had about 3,000 people. We had a post office and a K–8 school, and that was about it.”
As the lead for transmission construction in Arizona, Adam’s days start early and often stretch long. “I get up, get on the computer from my home office, check in on what’s happening that day, and jump into a few morning meetings,” he says. After that, he’s usually out the door and on the road to visit crews, talk with inspectors, and put eyes on the transmission line. “I don’t want to just be a name people hear. I want to be a face they recognize.”
And with 60,000 miles logged on his truck in 18 months, his presence is definitely known.
A marathon at sprint pace
“This project is the definition of big,” Adam says. “We’re talking 553 miles of transmission line across two states. And we didn’t just build it—we built it fast.” He pauses, then adds with a grin: “It was a marathon, but we sprinted it.”
Now nearly complete in Arizona, the team is finishing up in New Mexico.
“It’s been a true team effort,” Adam says. “Thousands of craft workers, engineers, inspectors—it takes a village, and then some.”
For Adam, overseeing construction means ensuring that every step complies with not just Pattern’s high standards, but also with state and federal environmental regulations, safety codes, and local county rules. “My job is to ensure that our work is safe, that the impact on the land is as minimal as possible, and that everything is built to last.”
High-impact views
Adam describes one particularly unforgettable part of the project: building transmission towers in areas so remote they had to be constructed entirely by helicopter. “There was no access,” he says. “We used everything from 407s to Chinooks. Watching it all come together—people on the ground communicating with pilots, workers on the towers guiding equipment into place—it was incredible.”
Adam has decades of experience, starting as a journeyman lineman and now managing large-scale builds. But even he was blown away by the scope.
“I’d done helicopter work before, but never like this. Using a Chinook to fly towers into place? That’s something I’ll never forget.”
Building His Legacy with Pattern
For Adam, building transmission lines isn’t just a job—it’s a passion passed down through generations.
“I’ve been doing this since I was 21,” he says. “I truly love what I do.”
He also thinks about the future. “I’ve got a granddaughter who just turned one. One day, when she’s older and I’m long retired, she’ll be able to look at this project and say, ‘My Papa helped build that.’”
That sense of legacy—of doing work that matters and will last—is part of what drives him. “SunZia is going to be the largest renewable energy infrastructure project in America. It’s huge. And I’m proud to be part of it.”
Coming home
After years of working in California, Adam and his wife moved back to Arizona to be closer to his home. They now live on the edge of Tucson, close to the hills, the desert, and the community they know and love.
“We’re outdoor people,” he says. “We hunt, we fish, we sneak up to the White Mountains in the summer to get out of the heat. Arizona is beautiful—especially when it’s not 115 degrees.” Ask Adam what he loves most, and the answer comes easily. “Being out in the middle of nowhere, in the hills, seeing wildlife—that’s where I’m most at home.”
For Adam, it hasn’t just been rewarding to return to where he grew up—it’s part of why he loves this work. Plus, he’s proud to help power the region he calls home.
“This project runs through land I know, through communities I care about. That means something to me.”