Stan Pace was vice chairman of TRW Inc. and later chairman and chief executive officer of General Dynamics Corporation. A native of Waterview, Kentucky (his mother was the first woman elected sheriff in the state), he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1943. He would later earn a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. During World War II, Pace flew 39 combat missions over Europe; he was shot down in 1944 and spent the next 10 months in German hospitals and prison camps. In 1954, he joined Thompson Products (later known as TRW) as general manager of its automobile parts plant in Los Angeles, and the following year came to Cleveland to manage Thompson’s jet engine division. In 1977, he was elected president and chief operating officer, and set about expanding TRW’s space and defense products lines. In 1985, on the brink of retirement, Pace was asked to join the embattled General Dynamics, the nation’s leading military contractor, which had been charged with pervasive misconduct in the awarding of government defense contracts. After getting the company back on track, he retired in 1990.

Pace served on the national boards of the Boy Scouts of America and Junior Achievement. He was a Cleveland Council commissioner for five years and helped to found the Greater Cleveland Roundtable. In 1984, he chaired United Way of Greater Cleveland’s annual fund drive, and in 1988 he was appointed U.S. national chairman for United Nations Day. He is an honorary director of the Western Reserve Historical Society. The Ethics Resource Center in Arlington, Virginia, annually bestows the Stanley C. Pace Leadership in Ethics Award to recognize accomplishments in ethical business management.