Quick Answer
Towery Electric is a Novato-based California C-10 electrical contractor founded in 2014 by Alex Towery. The company is owner-led, employs its own field crews, and built its reputation on custom-home and luxury residential electrical work for Marin County's top-tier builders. Today the work is roughly half builder-led and half direct-to-homeowner, with selective commercial and emergency service across Marin and the North Bay.
Key Takeaways
- Founded in 2014, owner-led ever since. Alex Towery started the company after years in the field for other Marin contractors. He still quotes jobs, still pulls permits, and still answers the phone.
- C-10 license #989290 in good standing. Verifiable on the California Contractors State License Board (CSLB) website. Workers' compensation and general liability insurance carried continuously since founding.
- Built on builder trust. Roughly 95% of our historical workload came from custom-home builders who chose Towery for their highest-end Marin projects. That's the standard we still hold.
- Single office, single dispatch. We work out of 46 Digital Drive in Novato. There is no regional franchise, no subcontracted geography — the contractor on your job is on Towery's payroll.
- Same-day callbacks. Honest scheduling. If we cannot do a job — wrong scope, wrong geography, wrong timeline — we say so on the first call. A clean referral beats a stretched promise.
01 — OverviewAbout Towery Electric — How the Company Was Built
Most electrical contractors in Marin County are either solo-operators chasing service calls or large multi-state outfits running through dispatch software. Towery Electric is neither. We are a single-office, owner-led C-10 contractor built around builder-grade workmanship for residential and commercial clients who can tell the difference between a hurried install and a careful one. The story below is how that frame came to be — and why it shapes every quote we send today.
An owner-led electrical contractor is a state-licensed C-10 electrical contracting business in which the named license holder (the Responsible Managing Officer or RMO) is personally involved in quoting, project management, technical decision-making, and warranty service — as opposed to a brand-only owner who has stepped back from field operations and delegated everything to staff or subcontractors.
Alex Towery founded Towery Electric in 2014 after several years working as a journeyman and lead electrician for established Marin contractors who specialized in custom-home work. The pattern he kept seeing was the same: builders wanted electricians who could read plans, push back intelligently on impractical drawings, finish on schedule, and stand behind the work after closeout — and they had a hard time finding that consistently in one company.
The original Towery Electric bet was simple. Stay small enough that the owner stays in the work. Hire and train field crews directly rather than subcontracting. Specialize in custom-home and luxury residential first, then let commercial and selective industrial work follow from builder relationships. Eleven years later, that frame still describes the company.
Towery now runs as a single-office contractor at 46 Digital Drive in Novato, dispatching across Marin County, into the luxury peninsula towns of Tiburon and Belvedere, and up the Sonoma corridor to Petaluma and Sonoma. The company is licensed by the California Contractors State License Board as a C-10 Electrical contractor under license number 989290, and carries continuous workers' compensation and general liability insurance.
What did change over the years is the customer mix. The first several years were almost entirely builder-led — custom-home GCs bringing us in on their highest-end Marin projects. Today the work is closer to fifty-fifty: half builder-led new construction and major remodels, half direct-to-homeowner panel upgrades, EV charger installations, lighting design retrofits, and the household electrical needs that come from owning a high-end Marin home.
Meet Alex Towery — Founder & License Holder
The C-10 named on every Towery permit, every quote, and every warranty callback. License holder, project manager, and the person you'll talk to before you sign anything.
Alex grew up doing technical work and came into the electrical trade through the route most builder-trusted electricians follow — apprenticeship, then journeyman-level work for established Marin custom-home electrical contractors, then his own C-10 license and his own shop. He has held the California C-10 Electrical Contractor license #989290 since 2014.
The shorthand for Alex's approach is something a long-time Marin GC said about him: he treats every home like a builder treats a final walkthrough. That means the wire runs are clean even where they will never be seen. The panel labeling is legible to whoever opens the dead-front next. The conduit fittings are torque-checked. The warranty callback isn't a fight. It is, frankly, the standard the customers paying Marin custom-home prices already expect — and the standard a lot of electrical contractors quietly fall short of.
Alex still quotes the work, still pulls the permits, and is still the person on the phone when something goes sideways. That isn't a marketing claim. It is the operating constraint that has kept Towery Electric a single-office company for eleven years.
- License: California C-10 Electrical Contractor #989290 (active since 2014)
- Insurance: Workers' compensation & general liability — continuous
- Code: Works to current California Electrical Code (CEC) and California Title 24 energy provisions
- Affiliations: Member of the Marin Builders Association builder network
What a Trusted Marin Electrician Should Actually Do
Quote what we can deliver
We do not buy work. The estimate reflects the materials, hours, permit cost, and contingency the job actually needs. If we are not the cheapest quote, that is usually why.
Pull the permit, every time
If the work requires an electrical permit under the California Electrical Code, we pull it. If the AHJ inspector flags something, we fix it on our dime. That is non-negotiable.
Label the panel like the next electrician matters
Every panel we touch leaves with a typed, legible directory. The next electrician — yours or somebody else's — should be able to read it in five seconds.
Stand behind the work
Workmanship warranty is real, written, and honored. If a device we installed fails inside the warranty window, we replace it. No fight, no service-call fee.
Say no when it's the right answer
If a job is wrong for us — scope, geography, timeline, or the right answer is somebody else's specialty — we say so on the first call and refer you well.
Treat the home like the customer treats it
Shoe covers. Drop cloths. Cleaned-up wire scraps. The job site at the end of the day looks like a job site, not a tornado. Marin homes get Marin standards.
02What Makes a Novato Electrical Company Different in Marin
Marin County is a small electrical market with very particular standards. The custom-home builders who work here have built relationships with a short list of electricians and they don't switch easily. Being the Novato-based electrical company that gets called back for the next project means the work has to clear a higher bar than the general market expects.
First, the builders we work with have been on enough sites to know what good electrical work looks like — and they have the cell numbers of three other electricians they could call. That keeps everyone honest. We get the call back because our wire pulls are clean, our trim-out is on time, and we do not leave punch-list items hanging into closing week.
Second, Marin homeowners are paying enough for the home that they care about the electrical work even when they say they don't. They notice the device alignment in the kitchen backsplash. They notice the dimmer that doesn't match the others. They will not complain in the moment — they will quietly hire somebody else for the next phase. Repeat work in this market is earned, not assumed.
Third, the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) inspectors in Marin County know the contractors who do clean work and the contractors who don't. We have spent eleven years building a track record of inspections that pass on the first walk, which means our customers' projects close faster.
03Why Marin Homeowners and Builders Choose Towery — A Builder-Grade Standard for a Trusted Marin Electrician
The Problem
Most contractors quote what wins the bid, not what the job needs.
The Solution
We quote the job realistically — materials, hours, permit, contingency. If we lose a bid because we were honest about scope, that is a bid we should lose.
The Resolution
Our jobs come in on quote or with documented change orders. Nobody gets a surprise invoice on closing week.
Eleven years dispatching from one Novato office, owner-led the whole time. That's the company.
04The Owner-Led Trusted Marin Electrician Difference
The most important thing about Towery Electric is the smallest thing about Towery Electric. We are small enough that the named license holder is the one running the business. That is the difference customers feel.
Most electrical contractors in Marin grew past the point where the owner could be on every job — and that is fine, that is normal scaling. The trade-off is that the customer experience starts to depend on whichever salaried project manager picks up the call. The original judgment that built the business gets diluted across a layer of staff. Some contractors manage that transition well; many don't.
Towery Electric chose to stop scaling at the size where the owner can still be the responsible person on every quote. That means we turn down work — we do, regularly. It also means that when a Marin custom-home builder calls about a tricky service-entrance upgrade on a hillside lot in Tiburon, the person they talk to is the same person who quotes it, pulls the permit, sequences the trades, and signs off on the final inspection.
There is a real cost to that frame. We don't do volume. We don't grow into adjacent counties. We don't take the cheapest jobs, because the cheapest jobs are the ones where the owner-led standard cannot be applied profitably. The benefit is that our customers — builders and homeowners both — get one accountable contractor per project. That is what owner-led means in our business.
05Towery in the Marin Community — Eleven Years and Counting
Towery Electric has been a Marin County business since the day it opened. We are based at 46 Digital Drive in Novato, just off Highway 101 with quick access to the entire county. Our crews live in Marin, Sonoma, and the immediate North Bay — the same towns we work in.
Over eleven years we have done electrical work in nearly every town in Marin: Novato, San Rafael, Mill Valley, Larkspur, Corte Madera, Tiburon, Belvedere, Sausalito, Ross, Kentfield, San Anselmo, Fairfax. The Sonoma corridor extension — Petaluma, Sonoma, Rohnert Park — became part of our regular service area on builder-led commercial work.
We are also a member-aware participant in the Marin Builders Association ecosystem and have ongoing working relationships with the general contractors, architects, designers, and inspectors who shape this market. That isn't marketing language — it is how a single-office contractor stays in business in a small, high-standard county for over a decade.
The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line on Towery Electric
If you are a Marin homeowner or a Marin custom-home builder looking for an electrical contractor who will treat your project like the named C-10 license holder is personally accountable for it — because he is — Towery Electric is built for that. Eleven years, one office, the same standard.
If you are looking for the cheapest electrical bid in the county, we will not be it, and we will say so on the first call. There is no hard feeling either way. We would rather lose a bad-fit job than stretch one badly delivered.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Towery Electric founded?
Towery Electric was founded in 2014 by Alex Towery in Novato, California. The company has operated continuously since that year out of a single office at 46 Digital Drive in Novato, dispatching across Marin County and the North Bay. Alex personally holds the California C-10 Electrical Contractor license, number 989290, which has been active since the company's founding year. The license is verifiable on the California Contractors State License Board website at cslb.ca.gov. The company has not changed ownership, location, or core service geography since founding. Today we serve a mix of custom-home builders and direct-to-homeowner clients across Marin, the luxury peninsula towns of Tiburon and Belvedere, and the Sonoma corridor up to Petaluma and Sonoma.
Who is Alex Towery?
Alex Towery is the founder, owner, and named C-10 license holder of Towery Electric. He started the company in 2014 after several years working as a journeyman and lead electrician for established Marin custom-home electrical contractors. He holds California C-10 Electrical Contractor license #989290 and is the Responsible Managing Officer (RMO) of record on the license. In practice, that means Alex is personally accountable to the California Contractors State License Board for the work the company performs. He still quotes jobs, still pulls permits when needed, and is the named contact on most builder relationships. The shorthand customers use is that Alex is the electrician who treats every home like a builder treats a final walkthrough — a phrase that started as a passing comment from a long-time Marin general contractor.
Is Towery Electric licensed and insured?
Yes. Towery Electric holds an active California C-10 Electrical Contractor license, number 989290, issued by the California Contractors State License Board (CSLB). The license has been in good standing since the company's 2014 founding and can be verified independently at cslb.ca.gov by searching the license number. The company also carries continuous workers' compensation insurance for all field employees and general liability insurance, with certificates available on request before any work begins. For commercial and builder-led projects, we routinely provide a Certificate of Insurance (COI) naming the general contractor or property owner as additional insured. Customers and builders who require specific endorsements should ask during the quote conversation so we can confirm coverage matches the contract requirement.
What kind of electrical work does Towery Electric specialize in?
Towery Electric specializes in custom-home and luxury residential electrical work for Marin County. That includes full new-build electrical packages — service entrance, branch circuit rough-in, low-voltage pre-wire, lighting design, panel and subpanel installations, EV charger pre-wire and installation, and final trim-out — along with major-remodel rewires, panel upgrades, and the high-end residential service work that comes from owning a Marin home. We also do selective commercial electrical work, particularly office buildouts, retail tenant improvements, and commercial service entrance work for builder-led projects. Industrial work — manufacturing, warehouse, three-phase motor control — is part of the company's competency but is a smaller share of the book. 24/7 emergency electrical service is available for established customers and selectively for new ones, prioritized by safety severity.
What areas does Towery Electric serve?
Towery Electric serves Marin County as our core daily service area: Novato, San Rafael, Mill Valley, Larkspur, Corte Madera, Tiburon, Belvedere, Sausalito, Ross, Kentfield, San Anselmo, Fairfax, and the unincorporated communities between them. We also regularly dispatch into the Sonoma corridor — Petaluma, Sonoma, and Rohnert Park — for builder-led residential and commercial projects. Selected work in San Francisco, the East Bay, and the Peninsula is considered on a case-by-case basis, typically when a long-standing builder client has a project there. We dispatch every job from our single Novato office at 46 Digital Drive, which means the contractor on your project is on our direct payroll — not a subcontracted regional franchise. If a job's geography is wrong for us, we will say so on the first call and refer you to a contractor we trust.
How is Towery Electric different from a national electrical service brand?
The structural difference is that Towery Electric is owner-led and single-office. The named C-10 license holder, Alex Towery, is personally involved in quoting, project management, and warranty service. National electrical service brands — the ones with regional franchise locations, dispatch software, and call centers — operate on a different model entirely. In that model, the contractor who quotes the job is usually not the person who shows up, the technician's compensation may be tied to per-call revenue, and warranty issues route through a corporate customer service layer. Neither model is wrong on its face, but they produce very different customer experiences. Towery's frame is appropriate for customers and builders who want one accountable contractor per project and are willing to wait for a real quote conversation instead of an instant dispatch. If you need somebody on site in the next hour for a routine service call and you do not yet have a relationship with us, a national brand may actually serve you better.
Do you work directly with custom-home builders?
Yes. Roughly 95 percent of Towery Electric's historical work came through Marin custom-home builders, and builder-led projects remain a substantial share of our current workload. We are familiar with the standard rhythm of a custom-home project — pre-construction electrical scope review, service entrance coordination with the utility (PG&E), rough-in to inspection, low-voltage pre-wire coordination with the AV vendor, trim-out alignment with the cabinet and tile schedule, final inspection, and one-year warranty follow-up. We carry the insurance endorsements builders typically require, we work to current California Electrical Code (CEC) and Title 24 provisions, and we are able to integrate with the builder's project management software and weekly trade meetings as needed. Builders looking to vet us for a project should ask for our license verification, current COI, and recent project references — all of which we will provide on the first call.
How do I get a quote from Towery Electric?
The fastest path to a quote is to call us at (415) 419-5960 or submit the form on our contact page. For most residential work, the next step is a site visit to walk the scope, look at the existing panel and service entrance, and confirm the practical constraints. For builder-led work, we typically review plans first and follow up with a site walk if the project is awarded. We do not provide instant phone quotes for anything beyond the simplest service work — Marin electrical jobs almost always have variables that make a sight-unseen quote unreliable, and we would rather be honest about that than send you a number we cannot stand behind. The site-visit quote is free for residential customers within our daily service area. For commercial and industrial work, the quote process follows the GC or property manager's bid timeline.
Does Towery Electric offer emergency electrical service?
Yes — Towery Electric offers 24/7 emergency electrical service across Marin County, with priority dispatch for established customers. Genuine electrical emergencies — visible sparking, burning smells, total power loss with no obvious utility cause, panel failures, water-contact electrical hazards — get prioritized by safety severity. Non-emergency after-hours requests are scheduled for the next business day at standard rates. If you have an active electrical emergency, the right first call is your utility (PG&E at 1-800-743-5000 for a Northern California gas or electric emergency); the second call is to us at (415) 419-5960. For more on what qualifies as an electrical emergency and what to do before help arrives, see our 24/7 Emergency Electrician page.
What is Towery Electric's warranty policy?
Workmanship warranty is written into every quote and varies modestly by scope. The standard residential workmanship warranty is one year from the date the work is signed off, covering installation defects in materials and labor performed by Towery Electric. Manufacturer warranties on devices, panels, breakers, fixtures, and EV chargers are passed through and honored per the manufacturer's terms — we will help the customer process the manufacturer claim if a device fails inside its warranty window. If a Towery-installed connection or termination fails inside the workmanship warranty period, we replace it at no charge to the customer, including the service trip. Warranty disputes are rare because we document scope clearly on the front end and label every panel we touch on the back end — both of which prevent the kind of misunderstanding that leads to warranty arguments later.
How We Built This Resource
This page was authored by Healthcare Marketing Group's editorial team and reviewed for technical accuracy by Alex Towery, owner of Towery Electric, Inc. and a California-licensed C-10 electrical contractor (CSLB #989290). Primary sources include the California Contractors State License Board, the California Electrical Code (Title 24, Part 3), the National Fire Protection Association's NFPA 70 (National Electrical Code), and the Electrical Safety Foundation International. Content is reviewed quarterly and within 30 days of any update to California Title 24, the NEC, or Google's core ranking guidance.
What's new: {'title': 'Recent Company Updates', 'items': [('2026 Q1 update', 'Towery Electric crossed eleven years of continuous operation in Marin under the same ownership and the same C-10 license. The company added a third field crew to support increased custom-home demand in the Tiburon/Belvedere corridor.'), ('2025 portfolio review', 'A retrospective review of 2025 projects showed continued concentration in custom-home new construction (52%), residential remodels and panel upgrades (31%), commercial buildouts (12%), and emergency service (5%).'), ('2024 fleet refresh', 'All Towery field vehicles were updated with current PPE, code reference materials, and stocked first-call inventory to reduce return trips on standard service work.')]}
References
- California Contractors State License Board. "License Detail — Towery Electric, Inc. (#989290)." cslb.ca.gov
- National Fire Protection Association. "NFPA 70 — National Electrical Code." nfpa.org
- California Energy Commission. "Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24)." energy.ca.gov
- Electrical Safety Foundation International. "Home Electrical Fires and Safety." esfi.org
- California Public Utilities Commission. "Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS)." cpuc.ca.gov
- U.S. Department of Energy. "Home Energy and Electrification Resources." energy.gov