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Published on: 7/20/2007
Last Visited: 11/3/2007
As chief operating officer for Entergy Corp.'s nuclear reactors in the South, Bill Campbell was running one of the country's biggest fleets of nuclear power plants when he got an offer earlier this year from one of his former colleagues at another utility.TVA President Tom Kilgore, who worked with Mr. Campbell at a South Carolina utility in the 1980s, was looking for someone new to head nuclear operations at the nation's biggest government utility.
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After working for more than 33 years at some of the industry's top-performing nuclear utilities, Mr. Campbell said he was still eager for a bigger challenge."It's one thing to be part of a large fleet overseeing some operations and it's another to be the chief nuclear officer and to be able to influence the organization with regard to policy, staffing and development," TVA's new nuclear chief said."The chance to come in and really be part of something special and help build a program is really an itch I had to scratch."Mr. Campbell, a 55-year-old nuclear engineer, assumed TVA's top nuclear job in May.In his first six weeks on the job, he witnessed the restart of TVA's oldest reactor and a visit by President George Bush to herald the achievement.Browns Ferry's Unit 1 reactor was restarted largely on time and on budget following a $1.8 billion, five-year upgrade to become the first new reactor added to America's nuclear fleet in the 21st century.With a record six reactors operating at full power, TVA is getting about 30 percent of its electricity this summer from nuclear power.Mr. Campbell is quick to praise TVA's staff for the recent milestones."We are doing some amazing things with the Browns Ferry restart, and I think we have the potential to do a lot more going down the road," he said last week during an interview in his third floor Chattanooga office."The one thing that I have been very pleasantly surprised with is really the quality of people I have run across since I have been here."Mr. Campbell not only previously worked with Mr. Kilgore, he also worked in the past with his new direct boss, TVA Chief Operating Officer Bill McCollum.In the 1970s, both Mr. Campbell and Mr. McCollum worked at the Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina.
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Mr. McCollum actually succeeded Mr. Campbell at CP&L's Catawba nuclear plant when Mr. Campbell switched to another job.
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Mr. Campbell said knowing his bosses and getting a chance to be closer to his son and daughter in North Carolina also helped attract him to TVA.The new nuclear chief said he will concentrate on keeping TVA's operating reactors operating as safely and efficiently as possible.Unlike his predecessor, Karl Singer, Mr. Campbell will concentrate entirely upon the operation of existing plants.
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If TVA finishes Watts Bar Unit 2 or builds a new type of reactor at Bellefonte, those units would come under Mr. Campbell's responsibility only when the units are ready for operation."Operating these plants is a very demanding business and it takes a lot of focus to do it right," he said."The idea of keeping the operating focus on these plants and not diffusing your time and attention with all of the demands of running a construction project is the right thing to do and when I was interviewing for this position I recommended they do this."Mr. Campbell said he wants to focus more attention on improving performance than trying to make major cuts in the utility's 2,600-employee nuclear staff."Part of the mission I'm on is to get us away from thinking so much about staffing numbers and thinking more about our performance," he said.Mr. Campbell said TVA is among the top quartile of utilities in costs of nuclear power production, but he said the utility overall "is probably middle of the road right now in performance" among U.S. utilities.TVA had an above-average number of scrams, or reactor shutdowns last year, Mr. Campbell said."We need to set our sights on excellence and there's no reason that TVA shouldn't operate the best fleet of nuclear plants in the country," he said."We ought to be shooting to be the best and if you apply that standard to us we have some work to do."Mr. Campbell said he has had a lifelong passion for making things work.He became interested in designing and building projects in fourth grade when he read a book on engineering projects for children.In college at North Carolina State University, Mr. Campbell switched from the study physics to nuclear engineering at the urging of one of his faculty advisors.He has remained in field ever since. "I've enjoyed being around nuclear people and big equipment," he said."It's been a very rewarding career."
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