Government & Politics - Public Policy - Corporate Compliance and Ethics

My Professional Biography

 Chester Paul Beach, Jr.


Attorney - Soldier - Government Official - Corporate Lawyer and Senior Executive


After 11 years of military and civilian Federal service, Paul Beach served as a senior legal executive for 23 years in positions of increasing importance within United Technologies Corporation (UTC) (now Raytheon Technologies), retiring in January 2016 as UTC's Corporate Vice President, International Trade Compliance.  

A native of Capleville, Tennessee (just outside of Memphis), Paul attended Virginia Military Institute (1972-73) and graduated from Vanderbilt University (B.A. political science magna cum laude, 1976) and the University of Chicago Law School (J.D., 1980).  Paul then served on active duty as a judge advocate in the U.S. Army in Germany (as a trial counsel and later supervisory prosecutor) and Washington, DC (as a military personnel litigation attorney and later assistant to the Chief of Army Litigation) from 1981 to 1987.  He completed his service as a Major, U.S. Army Reserve, and holds the Meritorious Service Medal (1st Oak Leaf Cluster), Army Commendation Medal and Army Achievement Medal.

After brief service as a civilian attorney-advisor in the Department of Defense General Counsel’s office, Paul was appointed Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of the Navy in August 1987, and subsequently served as Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of the Navy from August 1989 to June 1991.  During his Navy service, Paul directed the Navy’s administrative response to the “Ill Wind” procurement fraud investigation; led the Department of the Navy Management Review that reorganized the Navy Secretariat to comply with the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 and identified $11 billion in savings in the Navy shore establishment; and headed an investigation of the Navy’s A-12 aircraft development program.  From June 1991 to February 1992, and September 1992 to January 1993, Paul served as Associate Counsel to President Bush with primary responsibility for matters associated with the Iran-Contra Independent Counsel investigation.  From February 1992 to January 1993, Paul also served as Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense and Deputy Director, Defense Legal Services Agency, including five months as Acting General Counsel.  In January 1993, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney awarded Paul the DoD Distinguished Public Service Award.

Paul joined UTC in February 1993 as Assistant General Counsel in the Corporate Office.  He transferred to UTC's Pratt & Whitney division as Associate Counsel in September 1993, and established an industry-leading program to combat counterfeit and unapproved jet engine replacement parts and protect Pratt’s proprietary part design information.  In June 1995, Paul was promoted to Vice President, Contracts Management in Pratt’s Large Commercial Engines business, where he built a new organization and established ISO 9001-compliant processes to bring focus and discipline to Pratt’s commercial sales contracting activities.  UTC reassigned Paul to serve as Vice President and General Counsel of UTC’s Hamilton Standard division, and its successor Hamilton Sundstrand Corporation, from November 1996 through June 1999.  At Hamilton Standard, Paul played a leading role in resolving serious product liability litigation, establishing new product safety policies and procedures, acquiring Hamilton’s Ratier-Figeac and HS-Marston subsidiaries and integrating the Hamilton Standard and Sundstrand Corporation legal organizations following their May 1999 merger.  UTC promoted Paul to rejoin Pratt & Whitney as Vice President and General Counsel in July 1999, where he led a 175-member team (including 50 lawyers) in providing comprehensive legal, contracts and export/import compliance services to one of the world’s leading aero and land-based gas turbine and space propulsion companies, with more than 30,000 employees and annual sales then-exceeding $7.5 billion.  Paul also served as a director of RD Amross, LLC, a joint venture between Pratt & Whitney and the Russian enterprise NPO Energomash that manufactures and sells the RD-180 rocket booster.

Prior to focusing exclusively on international trade compliance at the beginning of 2012, Paul served as Associate General Counsel of UTC from January 2003.  In that position he led a team of lawyers and paralegals responsible for oversight of significant litigation and investigations; UTC’s initiatives to consolidate global outside counsel and improve productivity of outside legal spending; legal support for government contract and compliance matters, environmental remediation and supply management activities.  Paul also provided senior executive leadership for productivity and continuous improvement initiatives in legal services across all UTC business units, and was a focal point for issues related to implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.  He also represented UTC business units at the European Commission and with European Union member states as required to address issues regarding competition impacts of state aid provided to UTC’s aerospace competitors.  Paul chaired the UTC Legal Department’s Legal Management Team; and served as Secretary of the Audit Committee of the UTC Board of Directors and UTC management’s Disclosure Committee and Foreign Representation Committee.  In that role, from 2009 (and full-time from 2012 as UTC's first Corporate Vice President for International Trade Compliance), Paul also led initiatives to fulfill all requirements of U.S. and other applicable export, economic sanctions, import and customs laws and regulations across a global enterprise with 200,000 employees in more than 70 countries and 2015 net sales of $56 billion.  In this role, Paul led the resolution of a criminal investigation involving unlicensed exports by a UTC subsidiary to China in violation of the U.S. International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and development of a world-class export control organization and processes across UTC in response to requirements of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and a Consent Agreement with the Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance at the U.S. State Department.  A panel of industry experts selected Paul as the professional journal World ECR Forum's "Export Control Practitioner of the Year" for 2016.  

Paul is a former director and member of the Executive Committee of the United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut, and the recipient of its 2016 Community Service Award.  He is a former Board President and current trustee of the Connecticut Historical Society and a former trustee of the American Prosecutors Research Institute.  Paul also served as an Honorary Lecturer in the University of Liverpool's Management School, where he co-taught a module on The Compliance Manager as Strategic Business Partner in the University's Executive Master's in International Trade Compliance (EMITC) program at its London campus in September 2016.  


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