30+ Years of Helping SCE Employees Retire with Confidence
If you're an SCE employee approaching retirement, you’ve spent years building toward this moment — contributing to your 401(k), accumulating pension credits, and imagining what life looks like on the other side of a career. And as decision day gets closer, a familiar question tends to surface: Am I actually ready?
It's a question we've been helping SCE employees answer for more than three decades. And the history behind that work matters, not because it's a good story, but because it's your story, too.
Where This Started
In the early 1990s, SCE's HR department offered pre-retirement workshops to employees age 55 and older approaching the end of their careers. The workshops ran as a four-week series, with a different guest speaker each Tuesday evening covering Social Security and Medicare, estate planning, SCE retiree benefits, and finally, 401(k)s and investment planning for the transition from work to retirement. That last session was ours.
I, Kerry Bubb, founder of KWB Wealth, began leading the investment and retirement planning sessions across the Inland Empire. What started as a workshop quickly became something more, and after each series, employees and their spouses would request one-on-one meetings to talk through their personal situations. We would discuss their goals, their timelines, and their concerns, and when many of those employees decided to retire, many continued working with KWB Wealth to navigate what came next.
The Moment That Changed Everything: The 1996 VRO
In 1996, SCE offered a Voluntary Retirement Offer (VRO). This was a significant reduction in force that gave eligible employees, those meeting specific age and service requirements, an incentive package to retire early. It was one of the most consequential retirement decisions the SCE workforce had ever faced, and our team was asked to develop the educational materials for the VRO retirement workshops.
The VRO also introduced something new: for the first time, employees could choose a lump-sum distribution rather than lifetime annuity payments. It was an exciting option, but it also revealed something important about retirement preparedness.
Employees who had done the foundational work — paying down debt, saving consistently, building equity in their homes — were well-positioned to accept the VRO lump sum option providing a better outcome for their lifetime. Others who accepted the offer but hadn't made those same preparations struggled financially. The freedom of a lump sum, without the discipline to manage it, led some retirees to outlive their savings.
The lesson was clear then, and it holds today: chance favors the prepared.
Being prepared starts with a conversation. Schedule a complimentary SCE retirement review today — CLICK HERE.
What This Means for You
The retirement landscape at SCE has evolved significantly since the 1990s. The pension structure has changed; contribution limits have increased, and the decision between a lump sum and an annuity — whether under the grandfathered plan or the cash balance plan — remains one of the most consequential choices you'll make. Today, employees hired after December 31, 2017, don't have access to a pension at all, placing even more weight on 401(k) strategy and long-term planning.
What hasn't changed is the complexity of the transition and the difference that preparation makes.
KWB Wealth now works with more than 300 SCE retirees and employees, overseeing more than $1.55 billion in assets as of April 30, 2026.* That depth of experience with this specific workforce—its benefits structure, retirement timelines, and common decision points—has allowed us to develop a specialized planning process tailored to SCE employees.
How We Work with SCE Employees Today
Whether you're five years out from retirement or five months, our work with you focuses on two phases:
Pre-retirement: We review your full financial picture — pension elections, 401(k) allocation, tax strategy, Social Security timing, and healthcare planning — and build a timeline that aligns with your goals. We also help you stay positioned to act if an opportunity like a future VRO arises.
Post-retirement: We continue working with you to monitor spending, assess investment performance, manage risk tolerance, and make sure your assets support the life you planned for, not the other way around.
The goal, in both phases, is the same: to give you choice — over when you retire, how you retire, and what retirement actually looks like for you.
Ready to Talk?
If you're an SCE employee thinking about retirement — whether it's imminent or still years away — we'd welcome a conversation. Our advisors bring specific, deep knowledge of SCE's benefits and the decisions you're facing.
I am proud of the team we’ve built over the last 30 years at KWB, and of the long-standing, life-fulfilling advice we have provided to hundreds of SCE employees, their friends, and their families. And, we’re looking forward to the next 30 years.
Schedule a complimentary SCE retirement review today – CLICK HERE.
About Kerry Bubb
Kerry Bubb, MBA, AIF®, is the founder, President, and CEO of KWB Wealth. His career in financial services began in 1987, and he started KWB Wealth in 1996 — the same year he helped SCE employees navigate the Voluntary Retirement Offer. For nearly 30 years, Kerry and the KWB Wealth team have specialized in the pension, 401(k), and benefits decisions unique to the SCE workforce.
*Client assets include assets managed by KWB Wealth as well as certain brokerage, insurance, and other held-away assets for which KWB provides advice, planning, or oversight. This total includes assets that are not continuously managed or supervised and may differ from regulatory assets under management reported on Form ADV.
KWB Wealth is an independent registered investment adviser and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Southern California Edison (SCE).