Paul Robert Ignatius

11/11/1920 - 11/06/2025

Paul Robert Ignatius, a former secretary of the Navy, management executive and combat veteran of World War II, died peacefully at his home in Washington November 6, 2025, five days short of his 105th birthday.

Ignatius was born in Glendale, California in 1920 to Hovsep Ignatius and Elisa Jamgochian Ignatius. After graduating from the University of Southern California, he began studies at Harvard Business School and was then commissioned in 1943 as a U.S. Navy officer. He served as an ordnance officer on the USS Manila Bay, a small aircraft carrier that fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf and at Lingayen Gulf, where it was struck by two suicide bombers.

After graduating from Harvard Business School after the war, he married Nancy Sharpless Weiser in 1947, beginning a marriage that lasted 71 years until her death in 2019. He co-founded Harbridge House, a management consulting company, in 1950, and helped direct its growing business until he was asked to join the Kennedy administration in 1961. He was a senior Pentagon official for the next 8 years, serving as assistant secretary and then undersecretary of the Army, then as assistant secretary of Defense and finally as Navy secretary from 1967 to early 1969.

The USS Paul Ignatius, an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer ship named in his honor, was commissioned by the U.S Navy in 2019.

When Ignatius left government, he served two years as president of the Washington Post, then as president of the Air Transport Association and, later, as co-founder and chairman of the Logistics Management Institute. Ignatius also helped sustain many charitable organizations as board member and counsellor. Those included the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, the Washington Symphony, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the St. Albans School of Public Service, and the Washington National Cathedral.

Ignatius had four children, David, Sarah, Amy, and Adi, nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren, who were with him in his final days. His funeral will take place at 10 a.m. December 17 at the Washington National Cathedral. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his name be made to the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation or the Washington National Cathedral.