A General Dynamics executive who was suspended...

A General Dynamics executive who was suspended from the company last month after a breach of security at one of the defense contractor’s plants has decided to retire, the company announced Tuesday.

Melville R. Barlow, 62, will retire effective March 1 as general manager of the company’s Electronics Division. On Jan. 25, the executive was temporarily relieved of his duties pending an internal investigation after a San Diego Union reporter entered one of the division’s Kearny Mesa plants without having received security clearance.

A company spokesman said Tuesday that the internal investigation has been completed, but said he did not know whether Barlow’s decision to retire was related to the security breach and investigation. Although the company has previously acknowledged that security was breached at the plant, the spokesman declined to release the findings of the investigation, saying it was “private information.”

Barlow has been vice president and general manager since 1984 of the division that makes aircraft test and training equipment and employs 2,700 in San Diego.

Barlow will be succeeded by Terry A. Straeter, a division vice president and assistant general manager since 1987, and a General Dynamics employee since 1979. Previously, he was programs director of the Electronics Division’s Tactical Systems unit.

Before joining the company, Straeter worked at National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Straeter has an undergraduate degree from William Jewell College and a master’s degree from William and Mary College. In 1971, he received a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from North Carolina State University.