Thomas F. Patton (1903–2001) was president, chairman and chief executive of Republic Steel Corporation until his retirement in 1971. The son of Irish immigrants, Patton grew up on Cleveland’s West Side and attended St. Ignatius High School; in 1926, he earned a law degree from Ohio State University. After working in the legal department of the Union Trust Company, he joined the Cleveland law firm of Andrews & Belden and in 1930 helped work out the complicated merger of four companies into Republic Steel. Six years later, Republic hired Patton to set up an internal legal department. He joined the company’s board in 1943 and a year later was named vice president. He became company president in 1956.

In the early 1950s, Patton helped to establish the Cleveland Development Foundation, which sought to redevelop the city’s downtown area and build new housing for the poor. He served on the board of Ohio State and as a trustee of John Carroll University. He chaired the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, Sunny Acres Tuberculosis Hospital and PlayhouseSquare Foundation’s executive producers committee, and was a founding member of Bluecoats Inc., an organization that provides funds to help children of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty. In 1963, he served as state chairman of a successful campaign to authorize a $250 million bond issue for the establishment of branches of public universities throughout Ohio.