Serendipitous Management

Edwin Lupberger takes the reader on a journey through the last half of the twentieth century using his personal experience in the power industry to describe the changes in corporate business during this period. The author describes his career and the serendipitous events that shaped it with experiences at multiple levels of management with several organizations of various sizes and maturity. Over his career, he evolved to become a CEO of a major regional electric utility. He describes how he was initially faced with a company burdened by escalating costs of construction of multiple nuclear power facilities during the period of record-raising construction costs and interest rates at historic levels. He discusses the unique conditions facing the company that became Entergy and how regulatory and legal challenges complicated an already difficult financial and technical challenge. The story tells of overseeing the then-largest electric industry merger to date and following the financial challenge of the successful completion of four nuclear power stations financed in a nationally adverse political climate and stressed financial markets. The author describes the events and the efforts needed to shepherd the virtually bankrupt company from a decentralized corporate structure to a uniquely managed, financially strong corporate entity. It is a success story with lessons for our time.