1 James David Watkins, the former naval commander reportedly chosen by George Bush to head the Energy Department, is an authority on nuclear warfare who will put that expertise to work trying to clean up the nation's crumbling atomic weapons plants.
2 Watkins, whom CBS said has been picked to be Energy Secretary, will take over an agency charged with overseeing the multibillion-dollar renovation of the nation's aging and increasingly unsafe complex of plants that build nuclear warheads.
3 Watkins ended his 41-year Navy career in 1986 after a four-year stint as the chief of naval operations, the service's top officer.
4 But within a year, the former nuclear submarine commander had stepped into a new hot seat.
5 In October 1987, President Reagan picked Watkins to head the presidential commission that was supposed to tell Reagan what the nation should do about AIDS.
6 Watkins, used to command, jumped in with authority, guided the panel through exhaustive hearings and led it to a series of widely praised recommendations.
7 Watkins was born March 7, 1927, in Alhambra, Calif., near the Los Angeles harbor.
8 His mother was Louis Ward Watkins, who ran unsuccessfully in 1938 for the Republican nomination to California's Senate seat, one of the few women at the time who sought national office.
9 He later recalled that his mother used to take him and his brother down to nearby Navy ports to watch the big ships come and go.
10 She sometimes arranged to get the three of them aboard the ships, where they dined with officers and heard tales about life on the high seas.
11 It was those stories -- and the ships -- that helped convince Watkins he wanted a life in the Navy.
12 He entered the Naval Academy in 1945, just as World War II was winding down.
13 Following his graduation four years later, Watkins served aboard destroyers and submarines, earned a master's degree at the Naval Postgraduate School, and then made a decision that helped steer the course of his career.
14 Watkins went into nuclear submarines, where he came under the aegis of Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the modern nuclear Navy and the man who played a key role in the careers of dozens of Navy leaders in the post-World War II era.
15 After completing the nuclear reactor engineering course at the Oak Ridge, Tenn., National Laboratory, Watkins took command of the nuclear-powered attack sub Snook.
16 Watkins steered the Snook into the harbor at Yokosuka, Japan, the first visit of a nuclear-powered ship to the only nation which has been the target of nuclear attack.
17 More than 5,000 demonstrators greeted the ship.
18 Watkins rose within the Navy's ranks and became commander of the Pacific Fleet, based in Honolulu.
19 He was in that post in March 1982 when Reagan picked him as chief of naval operations.
20 In that post, Watkins helped oversee the big naval buildup, from 450 to nearly 600 ships, that was at the heart of Reagan's defense budget during the president's first term.
21 Watkins and his wife of 38 years, Sheila Jo, have raised six children.

James David Watkins , the former naval commander reportedly chosen by George Bush to head the Energy Department , is an authority on nuclear warfare who will put that expertise to work trying to clean up the nation ' s crumbling atomic weapons plants .
crumbling atomic weapons plants
Why are the plants falling apart?