Like Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, Missly Lofland leads an exciting double life. By day, this dedicated wife, mother and — believe it or not — grandmother supervises 13 dispatchers and five billing reps for TXU Electric Delivery (Irving, Texas, U.S.). Lofland's free time, however, is spent displaying her latest tattoo and cruising America's highways on her Harley Davidson Road King motorcycle. “My bike is beautiful,” she says. “It's custom-painted purple with lots of spiders and webs.”

Lofland's career at TXU spans more than 25 years and resembles many of the roads she travels on her bike — mostly smooth, but sometimes full of hairpin turns, peaks and valleys.

Upon joining the company in 1981, Lofland was employed part-time, handling insurance claims before taking a full-time position in accounting, where she worked as a PBX operator and cashier. “I had just turned 21 and wanted a job that offered security,” Lofland says.

In 1984, Lofland married and was transferred shortly afterward to TXU's Euless, Texas, office as a stenographer. Over the next few years, Lofland held numerous jobs within the company, including stints as a clerk, cashier, customer accounts representative and collections representative. Wanting to obtain a college degree, Lofland attended night classes a few times a week but quit after her first child — a daughter named Jenna — was born in 1985. Lofland's son, Cale, came along four years later in 1989.

When TXU underwent reorganization in 1992, Lofland found herself reassigned to TXU's new Customer Call Center. During her years at the call center, she took escalated supervisor calls and worked in both the Apartment Services and Energy Aid departments.

In the fall of 1998, TXU purchased Lone Star Gas Co. (Hurst, Texas), which surprised Lofland as well as her coworkers. Luckily, a position became available in field service dispatch, and Lofland applied for and got the job. “We dispatched gas and electric service orders,” recalls Lofland. “It was quite a different world for me.”

That year proved pivotal for Lofland, not only professionally but also personally.

“In 1998, my husband, Ray, and I bought our first motorcycle — a beautiful Harley Davidson Heritage Softail loaded with chrome,” Lofland says. “Ray wanted me to be ‘the babe on the back.’” However, Lofland has never been one to ride second string. “We rode the Softail together for a few months, and then we found a really cool Dyna WideGlide,” Lofland says. “We bought it and had two motorcycles to get home that day. I ended up riding the Softail,” she says. “I was terrified yet thrilled at the same time. I had ridden a 440 Kawasaki years earlier, but had never gotten my license or felt comfortable on it.”

A few weeks later, Lofland signed up for a motorcycle-riding course to obtain her license. “I was the only female in the class and the only Harley owner,” she says. “It was great.”

Along with the Harley Softail came Lofland's first tattoo — a vine and butterfly she proudly displays across her left shoulder. This “girlie” tattoo, along with two others she's acquired, reminds Lofland of the numerous bike events she has attended: HOG rallies (Hot Springs, Arkansas), the ROT (Republic of Texas) Rally in Austin, Texas, and rallies in Roswell, New Mexico, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In July 2004, Lofland and a girlfriend rode to Colorado for a two-week trip. “There were no men to tell us what to do. It was one of the best experiences of my life,” she says.

When asked about her worst motorcycle outing, Lofland says her first trip to Arkansas for a HOG rally wins hands down. “We left Dallas in tank tops on a Friday in September. The next day, a ‘blue northern’ blew in. It was so cold when we headed home on Sunday morning that we put on every piece of clothing we could and still be able to ride. I looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy,” she says. “Needless to say, we were better prepared next time.”

Last year, Lofland decided to return to college. She attends Letourneau University, a Christian college located in Longview, Texas, and is pursuing a four-year degree in business administration. In addition, Lofland has had to contend with more changes at TXU. In 2002, gas dispatch was separated from electric dispatch, and Lofland was promoted to supervisor of electric dispatch. Today, her department dispatches to more than 400 techs and worked approximately four million orders in 2006.

Despite her increased job responsibilities, growing family — Lofland is the proud grandmother of Drake — and homework, Lofland still finds time to indulge her passion for motorcycle riding. “I am really into biking,” she says. “I tend to ride fast. When I ride, I can breathe and enjoy all the wonderful things God has given me. Riding makes me feel alive. I've got it all: I've got the leather, I've got the chaps, I've got the tattoos.”