General Merrill A. (“Tony”) McPeak entered the Air Force in 1957 as a Distinguished Graduate of the San Diego State College ROTC program. A career fighter pilot, he spent two years with the Air Force’s elite aerobatic team, the Thunderbirds, performing before millions of people in nearly 200 official air shows in the U.S. and overseas. He flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam. Senior leadership assignments included command of the 20th Fighter Wing in NATO, the Twelfth Air Force (and concurrently U.S. Southern Command Air Forces) and the Pacific Air Forces. He was Air Force chief during a period of very active US involvement overseas, including Operation Desert Storm. While leading the Air Force, he conceived and executed the most extensive reorganization in its history, creating a service better suited to meet the nation’s defense needs.

Following retirement from active military service, General McPeak began a second career in business. He has been a director of nearly 20 public companies, including Aerojet Rocketdyne, Tektronix, TWA and ECC International, where he was for many years Chairman of the Board. He had long service as a director of privately held Sensis Corp., before Saab acquired that business in 2011. General McPeak was a founding investor, director, and Chairman of Ethicspoint, a Portland-based provider of risk management and compliance software-as-a-service that was acquired in February 2112 by The Riverside Company, with a significant return to investors. He co-invested with Riverside and remained a director of the company, rebranded as NAVEX Global and sold again in November 2014 to Vista Equity Partners. Based on return to investors, Ethicspoint/NAVEX is the one of the most successful Oregon business startups in decades.

General McPeak was for several years a director and Chairman of Coast Plating, Inc., a Los Angeles-based company doing metal finishing for the aerospace and other industries. Trive Capital acquired Coast Plating in October 2013. He co-invested with Trive and remained a director of the company, rebranded as Valence Surface Technologies. VST became the world’s largest independent provider of metal finishing services to the aerospace and defense industries. It was subsequently sold at a high-multiple return for partners and investors.

In 1992, San Diego State University honored General McPeak with its first ever Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1995, George Washington University gave him its Distinguished Alumni Award, the “George.” In 2005, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the founding of Sigma Chi fraternity, he was selected one of 150 members of its Hall of Fame. He was among the initial seven inductees to the Oregon Aviation Hall of Honor. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, and has been listed in Who’s Who for more than 35 years. He is a member of the Arlington Club and the University Club, both of Portland, Oregon, and of the Cercle De L’Union Interalliée, Paris.

General McPeak appeared in and was technical advisor to the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War, released September 2017.

In 2008, General McPeak was a national Co-Chairman of Obama for President. The president subsequently appointed him to the American Battle Monuments Commission, responsible for supervising the many cemeteries and monuments in 15 countries overseas that commemorate the achievements and sacrifices of the men and women of our Armed Forces. He was the eleventh Chairman of the Commission and the first airman to hold that position. In September 2017, in connection with his success in raising funds to renovate the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial, in Paris, France, and making it an ABMC property, General McPeak received the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest civilian decoration awarded by the Department of the Air Force. In September 1918, General McPeak was made an Officer of the French Legion of Honor. In 2020, the annual “McPeak Lectures” were established at the Air War College. The program invites highly regarded speakers to address important problems in international security, with an emphasis on creative and unusual ideas.