Juan’s life course towards pursuing an electrical engineering degree was steered early on. As a child he enjoyed spending time in his father’s electrical shop. He would help him fix appliances and at times also build electrical toys for himself and his siblings.
Due to the civil war in his native El Salvador his family sought to relocate. Initially the family moved to Canada where Juan attended the first part of high school. Later the family moved to California. Juan finished high school here and started toward his college degrees at East Los Angeles Community College. From there he transferred to California State University Long Beach and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering with an emphasis in power systems in 1998.
Upon graduation, Juan joined Merlin Gerin Electronics, he worked as an applications engineer with them for five years. While he enjoyed his work there, Juan desired to work for an electric utility company. He knew an advanced degree would increase his chances of being hired by an electric utility. Juan applied and was accepted into the University of Southern California (USC) electrical engineering Master of Science program. Shortly after completing his degree, Juan was hired by Southern California Edison (SCE) in 2003 as an electrical engineer with the utility’s research, development and demonstration group.
Currently Juan is a Senior Electrical Engineer in the Power System Studies and Reliability Group. He is responsible for conducting electromagnetic transient studies which includes circuit breaker transient recovery voltage evaluations, and long transmission lines switching transients among others. He is also responsible for reviewing computer simulations generated to investigate potential high voltage equipment failure and the study reports generated to recommend future practices.
In addition to his technical work, Juan’s other passion is in developing the next generation of power engineers. He is presently teaching a power engineering senior-level course at California State University Los Angles. He serves as an advisor for the Edison project in which students from California State University Long Beach are given a semester to work on a real power system-related problem. Juan is also a volunteer at a SCE sponsors program with USC called “The Edison Challenge” in which junior high school students work on topical environmental and energy issues.
Juan knows dreams can be achieved with perseverance, hard work and honesty. Through his various outreach efforts he wishes to ignite that same passion and drive in the students he works with.
