Michael P. W. Stone; Former Secretary of Army

Michael Patrick William Stone, the 15th secretary of the Army from 1989 to 1993, died Thursday at his San Francisco home of bone marrow cancer. He was 69.

At his death, Stone was director of BEI Electronics Inc. in San Francisco. He also was chairman of the board for Projects International Assoc. of Washington, D.C., and director of Canadian Marconi Co., a Montreal-based electronics firm.

Stone was appointed secretary of the Army by former President George Bush. During his service, he presided over the Army’s response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, as well as a series of base closures and force reductions.

He also served as chairman of the board of directors of the Panama Canal Commission from 1990 to 1993.

Stone, a native of England who became a naturalized citizen in 1951, graduated from Yale University in 1948.

Stone worked in New York and Chicago before moving to San Francisco in 1954, where he joined the management consulting firm of McKinley & Co. He later worked at Utah International as assistant to the president.

Stone also worked for the Agency for International Development, where he was director of the Office of Caribbean Basin Initiative Affairs from 1984 to 1985, and director for the agency’s Cairo Mission from 1982 to 1984.