CP&L president rocks the nuke box.

• Position: Carolina Power and Light President Bill Cavanaugh's legal problems with Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant

Bill Cavanaugh promised he would hit the ground running when he took over Sept. 1 as president of Raleigh-based Carolina Power & Light Co. Now he may have the folks at CP&L's troubled Brunswick Nuclear Plant near Southport wondering whether they ought to run from him.

In less than three months, Cavanaugh, 53, has completely overhauled the plant's management and replaced Brunswick's top two officers. The rapid-fire changes signal a new culture at CP&L, where major decisions typically follow months of painstaking study.

That's Bill Cavanaugh, associates say -- nuclear engineer, protege of the demanding Adm. Hyman Rickover and a perfectionist. His military training was apparent at New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which owns utilities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.

"Bill is very demanding, but not demanding in an unreasonable way," says Charles L. Kelly, Entergy's head of corporate communications. "I had a couple of occasions when I didn't meet his expectations. And he wanted to know why. It was never considered that you can't meet those expectations."

A New Orleans native, Cavanaugh attended an exclusive Jesuit high school where students wore khaki uniforms and practiced close-order drill daily. After getting a degree in mechanical engineering from Tulane University in 1961, he served eight years in the Navy, leaving in 1969 as a lieutenant commander.

From 1969 to 1992, he worked for Entergy in various management positions, most recently as group president of energy supply. He accepted the CP&L job with the...