JDBC getConnection with Tomcat - Mailing list pgsql-novice

I'm sorry for the posting, but recently re-installed my development machine to Win XP from Win 2000.  I had everything working fine with Win 2000.  My issue is when I go the query the database from my jsp page I receive this HTTP Status 500 error:

Exception
javax.servlet.ServletException
        org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processException(RequestProcessor.java:523)
                . . .

root cause
java.lang.NullPointerException
        fssm.dao.UnitDAO.getUnit(UnitDAO.java:104)
        fssm.manager.UnitManager.HqsUnit(UnitManager.java:22)

Here is what's on line 104 of UnitDAO.java:

                . . .
                Connection conn = null;
                Statement stmt = null;
                ResultSet rs = null;

                try
                {
                        conn = getConnection();
                        stmt = conn.createStatement();

                        rs = stmt.executeQuery(GET_HQ_UNITS_SQL);
                . . .

Any suggestion for what I should check.  I'm thinking I have a path problem.  My web.xml points to an application.xml file in CATALINA_HOME\conf\Catalina\localhost directory.

Thank you,
Warren