Rob Adams Consulting LLC
No firm overhead between you and the answer.
38 years inside one utility. Every functional domain. The full arc — operator, builder, grid technology innovator. Now independent, boutique, and deliberately selective.
Site under construction — full launch coming soon.
About
Rob Adams didn't arrive at grid technology from a consulting firm or an engineering school. He arrived from the control center floor.
His career at Florida Power & Light began in 1988, starting as a helper before moving to the trouble office as a service clerk. Early in that role, he served as facilitator for the team representing the trouble office during FPL's Deming Prize process — the first non-Japanese company in history to earn that distinction. That experience shaped everything that followed: a career-long obsession with process discipline, operational rigor, and doing things right the first time.
From the control center he moved through budget analysis and field supervision, then into an HR and Labor Relations rotation before returning as a budget manager. In that role he led the implementation of FPL's Work Management System for Distribution — his first major technology build, and the moment an operator became a builder. He then moved into field operations as an Operations and Construction Manager before ascending to Budget Director, giving him an unusual command of both how work gets done and what it costs.
As Budget Director he faced the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons — including discovery and regulatory testimony. That is what pressure-tested experience actually looks like.
From there, the enterprise. He led the financial blueprint for NextEra Energy's SAP implementation, then took the helm of the overall SAP deployment across the organization — one of the largest ERP implementations in the utility sector.
He returned to the operational core — leading T&D scheduling, then architecting the reconsolidation of Transmission and Distribution into a single business unit. Before taking the helm of Grid Control Systems, he spent a year back in the control center as Operations Senior Manager — a deliberate return to the floor before leading the technology that runs it.
Eight years of Grid Control Systems followed. Then the role that became his career capstone: Executive Director of Power Delivery Smart Grid & Innovation — where ADMS development and implementation, the pioneering of artificial intelligence in operational environments, and the definition of a new standard for drone-based visual intelligence came together as the body of work he carries forward.
The convergence Rob brings to clients isn't just IT and OT. It's operations, finance, enterprise technology, and grid modernization — four domains most consultants have only visited one of, built over 38 years inside one of the most sophisticated utility operations in North America.
Rob Adams Consulting LLC is intentionally small. A maximum of five clients at any time. Every engagement is led by Rob, not delegated. The practice exists for organizations that need a senior voice — one who has made the decisions, not just studied them.
Domain Expertise
The domains where 38 years of operating experience translate directly into client value.
Most organizations treat information technology and operational technology as separate disciplines with separate budgets, separate vendors, and separate governance. That separation is where risk lives.
Rob Adams spent his career at the boundary where enterprise systems meet field operations — where a software decision has consequences measured in reliability, safety, and storm response. His work spans both worlds not as a translator, but as someone who has owned accountability in both. He knows where the seams are, what falls through them, and how to close them.
ADMS is one of the most complex technology programs a utility can undertake. The technical implementation is hard. The operational change management is harder. The governance required to move from pilot to production is where most programs stall.
Rob led ADMS development and implementation at Florida Power & Light — resulting in what is today the largest ADMS instance in production in the world. He understands the full arc: from architecture decisions through field deployment, from vendor management through operator adoption. He has sat in the room where the hard calls get made.
Managing the energy management suite at this scale is not a project — it is a continuous operational responsibility where the cost of getting it wrong is measured in grid reliability and regulatory consequence.
Rob's team operated and twice upgraded a single EMS instance serving a dual role unique in North America: simultaneously running FPL's utility operations and serving as the platform for FRCC — the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council — overseeing the entire transmission grid for the state of Florida. One system. Two critical functions. Zero margin for error.
That responsibility extended beyond Florida. Rob's team held control systems oversight for NextEra's transmission operations outside the state, including TransBay Cable — the HVDC interconnect linking Northern and Central California.
The systems work during this era also enabled two of the most complex transitions FPL has undertaken: the integration of Gulf Power's control systems following the NextEra acquisition, and the co-led migration of the balancing authority from Southern Company to FPL — with Rob's team building the systems foundation that made FPL's assumption of direct real-time grid responsibility possible.
Rob Adams was a pioneer in bringing artificial intelligence into utility operations. He championed and led the implementation of VSPA — the Virtual Service Planning Assistant — one of FPL's first major AI systems, and subsequently led the education of the business unit as the organization navigated the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
His experience spans practical implementation, integration of AI within ADMS, and active planning for future integration into Energy Management Systems and other control environments. That work earned him a contributor role in NERC's Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Real-Time System Operations white paper (Revision 1, November 2024) — alongside contributors from CAISO, ERCOT, PJM, and Midcontinent ISO.
The question he brings to every engagement is the same one operators ask: does this make the grid more reliable, or does it make the vendor deck more impressive?
Work management is where strategy meets the street. A utility can have the best technology stack in the industry and still fail its customers if work isn't planned, dispatched, and executed with discipline.
Rob led the implementation of FPL's Work Management System for Distribution — one of his earliest and most formative technology builds. That experience, combined with his time as an Operations and Construction Manager, gives him a field-level perspective that most technology consultants simply don't have. He has managed crews, managed budgets, and managed the tension between the two.
The utility industry has embraced drones for infrastructure inspection. What it hasn't solved is what happens after the flight — the gap between capturing imagery and getting a crew in the field to act on it.
Rob Adams defined and drove the standard: flight to work order in one hour. From drone imagery captured in the field to an actionable work order within sixty minutes. That operational standard — now the subject of a pending patent — reframes drone inspection from a data collection exercise into a real-time operational capability.
His work in this space spans the full arc: visual intelligence integration, automated defect identification, work order generation, and the operational processes required to close the loop between what the drone sees and what the crew does.
Eight years running Grid Control Systems. A career arc that moved through every functional domain in a major utility before landing in grid technology. Rob Adams has overseen more grid modernization programs than most organizations will ever attempt.
His governance framework is built around a single discipline: getting pilots to production. The gap between a successful proof of concept and an operational program is where good ideas go to die. Closing that gap — with rigor, with accountability, and with the organizational muscle to sustain it — is the work.
Rob Adams is a named inventor on patents assigned to Florida Power & Light Company.
Systematic Outage Planning and Coordination in a Distribution Grid (US20210334910A1, awarded June 2025) — an automated system for planned outage and switching workflow coordination in a distribution grid. The invention automates conflict resolution across work orders, bundles downstream switching work into a single customer outage window, integrates with SCADA and smart meter data, and incorporates AI-based failure prediction. The result: less customer outage time, less wasted crew effort, and a control center that knows what's happening before the phone rings.
Two additional patents are pending — one covering the flight-to-work-order operational standard for drone-based visual intelligence, and one covering AI-driven estimated restoration time prediction.
Engagements
The practice is built around four engagement types. Each is designed for a different kind of client relationship — but all share the same constraint: I'm in the room, not a junior team member carrying my name.
For utilities and technology vendors that need a steady, senior voice in key decisions without adding a seat to the org chart.
This is a monthly structured engagement — regular cadence, defined access, ongoing counsel. It works best for organizations navigating a major technology program, a vendor relationship that needs an experienced hand, or a strategic inflection point where the cost of a bad decision is measured in years, not quarters.
The value isn't a deliverable. It's judgment, available when you need it, from someone who has been where you are.
For organizations working through a specific transformation that benefit from consistent operating rhythm and deeper presence.
ADMS deployment. OT/IT integration. Control systems modernization. AI implementation in operational environments. These programs don't fail for lack of technology — they fail for lack of experienced governance. An embedded advisor brings the discipline of someone who has run these programs before, working alongside your team for the duration.
This engagement is for clients who need more than counsel. They need someone in the work.
A scoped 90-day engagement with a defined output.
Assessment. Architecture review. Strategy. Program design. Vendor evaluation. Whatever the organization needs to move from stuck to clear. Structured start, structured finish, specific deliverables.
This is the right entry point for organizations that aren't ready for a retainer but have a specific problem that needs a senior answer — fast.
For investors with portfolio exposure in grid technology, OT/IT convergence, or utility infrastructure.
Rob brings something most operating advisors in this space can't: he has been the customer. He has evaluated the vendors, sat across the table in procurement decisions, and run the programs these portfolio companies are selling into. That perspective — what actually gets bought, what actually gets deployed, what actually gets sustained — is the asset.
Engagements include diligence support, portfolio company operating counsel, and ongoing sector perspective for firms building or managing positions in the energy technology space.
For strategy and advisory firms that need a credentialed utility operator to anchor or augment client engagements.
The major consulting firms do exceptional work at the strategy layer. Where they sometimes need reinforcement is the operational layer — someone who can speak with authority about the software systems and operational processes that keep a control center running 24x7, deploy an ADMS, migrate a balancing authority, or integrate AI into an operational environment.
This engagement is episodic by design. A specific client situation. A defined scope. A senior voice that adds credibility and depth where the engagement needs it most.
This is the person the consultants call when they need someone who has actually done it.
Contact
The practice is capped at five clients. That's not a marketing line — it's how the work stays at the level it needs to be. Every engagement gets me, not a team built around my name.
If you're working through a grid technology transformation, evaluating a major vendor relationship, building or managing a position in the energy technology space, or need a senior utility voice to anchor a client engagement — and you believe there's a fit — the right first step is a conversation.
Not a proposal. Not a scope of work. A conversation.
I'm committed to giving back outside the practice — as a mentor to emerging utility and technology leaders, and as a long-time participant and team leader in the Dolphins Cancer Challenge, the nation's largest cycling fundraiser for cancer research.
Schedule
The right first step is a conversation. Select a time that works and I'll come prepared.