Homer Pace

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homer St. Clair Pace (April 13, 1879—May 22, 1942) was one of the founders of Pace University along with his brother Charles Ashford Pace.

Born in Rehoboth, Ohio Homer Pace first worked as an assistant to his father, John Fremont Pace, a Civil War veteran, in editing and publishing a weekly newspaper. He left journalism following the death of his father in 1896. After working as a secretary and bookkeeper in Michigan, Texas and Minnesota, he secured a position with the Chicago Great Western Railroad. In January 1901, he was transferred to New York City to serve as manager of the New York City office and, in 1902, became the Secretary of the Mason City and Fort Dodge Railroad, an affiliated line. In 1904, he took and passed the New York State C.P.A. examination.

In 1906, Homer Pace left the railroad to begin a business of his own. Together with his brother Charles, an attorney, he established the partnership of Pace & Pace for the purpose of preparing candidates for the New York State C.P.A. examination. In its early years, the Pace & Pace partnership ran schools that featured courses in accountancy and business law in a number of cities throughout the United States. The Pace Standardized Course could also be taken by correspondence. One of these schools, the Pace Institute of Accountancy in New York City, was chartered as Pace Institute in 1935. Pace served as the president of the New York State Society of CPAs from 1924 to 1926. He was Acting Deputy Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service from 1918-1919.

The Pace brothers prepared their own curriculum and also developed a series of lectures on the theory and practice of accounting and business law. These evolved into written textbooks used by all Pace students.

Homer Pace served as the first President of Pace Institute until his death on May 22, 1942 from a cerebral hemorrhage. During his lifetime, he always emphasized that he was, first and foremost, a teacher and an educator. That was how he chose to be remembered: on his gravestone is carved the epitaph he wrote for himself, “Homer St. Clair Pace, Teacher.”

The Institute he founded along with his brother Charles became Pace College in 1948 and Pace University in 1973.

In 2002, The YMCA of Greater New York Hall of Fame featured a selection of the important people in the YMCA of Greater New York's history, which includes original photographs of Charles and Homer Pace, among others.

In 2004, The New York State Society of CPAs inducted Homer Pace into the Hall of Fame. [1] [2]