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In Jacumba, Calif., Shawn Bowers stands next to Desert View Tower, a silent sentry overlooking the Imperial Valley, 75 miles east by
southeast and a world away from the hustle and bustle of downtown San Diego. Bowers isn’t here to visit the century-old tower. His sights are set on a more contemporary, working monument to modern technology: a Verizon Wireless cell site.
As a network performance technician, Bowers drives a specially equipped vehicle thousands of miles – between Arizona and the Pacific Ocean and from the Mexican border to Palm Springs and California’s Inland Empire – to test the performance of Verizon’s wireless network and its competitors.
The cell sites that Bowers visits are center points of the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network, providing the connections customers count on for calls and Internet access – no matter how far off the beaten path they travel.
“Responsibility. That’s what I really like about this job,” says Bowers. “I’ve got a responsibility to my customers.”
This stop -- not far from the Mexican border and complete with real rattlesnakes and scorpions, a sign declaring “UFO Repairs Here,” the other-worldly Boulder Park, and 4G LTE coverage – is just part of an average day in the life of Bowers.
To catch a glimpse of Bowers’s day, watch the video.
