BURBANK, Calif., Aug. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Psychological Services, Inc. (PSI), the leader in pre-employment psychological testing and assessment, announced today the formation of the PSI Technical Advisory Board (PSI/TAB). Five renowned industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists and a highly-regarded attorney in the field of labor relations and employment law make up the panel, which will provide scientific and strategic guidance to the company.
Members of the Technical Advisory Board include Neal Schmitt, Ph.D., currently University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Michigan State University; Paul Sackett, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota; and Sheldon Zedeck, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. Providing insight into testing issues from a legal perspective will be Keith M. Pyburn, Jr., a Partner in the law firm Fisher & Phillips of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Chairman of the PSI/TAB is William Ruch, a nationally-recognized expert in employee selection and assessment, who lead PSI for over 20 years until recently stepping down as the company’s chief executive officer. John Weiner, Vice President of Products and Services for psi selection:assessment and a well-known industrial/organizational psychologist, will also represent PSI on the Technical Advisory Board.
(Complete biographies for all Technical Advisory Board members can be found below. Additional information is available online at http://www.psionline.com/tab.htm)
PSI is one of the oldest companies in the United States engaged in psychological pre-employment testing and assessment. Founded in 1946, the company has worked with over 10,000 companies, including over 30% of the Fortune 100.
“Science has been guiding the success of PSI products and services for nearly 60 years. That’s what made us a leader in the field,” said PSI’s President and Chief Executive Officer Doug Walner in his announcement. “The Technical Advisory Board will help us insure our products and services are technically sound, responsive to current trends and always aligned with the interests of our clients.”
The Technical Advisory Board will meet regularly to confer with PSI’s senior management team, and will also offer informal guidance throughout the year.
Headquartered in Burbank, California, PSI provides test development, test administration, and related services for employment and licensure examinations in the United States and Canada. PSI also offers consulting services for test validation, EEO compliance, and employee selection. PSI’s clients include Fortune 100 companies, state and federal government agencies, municipalities, businesses of all sizes and non-profit organizations. Visit PSI online at www.psionline.com or www.psiexams.com.
PSI TECHNICAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES WILLIAM RUCH
Under Bill Ruch’s leadership, PSI developed into a market leader serving Fortune 500 companies, state governmental agencies and industry associations across North America. Over the past 30 years, Bill has consulted extensively with businesses and professional organizations around the world to develop effective and technically prudent evaluation programs.
He is a pioneer in the evaluation of fairness of written tests in minority populations, and has presented an analysis of the research in this area to the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. Bill has conducted and served as technical advisor for more than 550 test development and validation studies, and he routinely delivers expert lectures and workshops on testing and equal opportunity employment. Additionally, Bill is recognized as a leading authority in the field of employment discrimination, having served as an expert witness in dozens of federal employment discrimination lawsuits.
In 1975, Bill assumed leadership of PSI from the Company’s founder, Dr. Floyd Ruch. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California (USC), and he successfully completed all courses for a doctorate in Industrial Psychology at USC.
NEAL SCHMITT, Ph.D.
Neal Schmitt is currently the University Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Purdue University in 1972.
Dr. Schmitt served as editor of the “Journal of Applied Psychology” from 1988 to 1994 and has served on ten editorial boards. He also served as president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Division 14 of the American Psychological Association during the 1998 / 1999 term. Dr. Schmitt received the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s Distinguished Service Contributions Award in 1998 and the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award in 1999. In addition, Dr. Schmitt was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
Dr. Schmitt was awarded the Heneman Career Achievement Award from the Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management. He has co-authored three textbooks (“Staffing Organizations” with Ben Schneider and Rob Ployhart, “Research Methods in Human Resource Management” with Richard Klimoski and “Personnel Selection” with David Chan), co-edited “Personnel Selection in Organizations” with Walter Borman and Measurement and Data Analysis with Fritz Drasgow and published approximately 150 articles.
His current research centers on the effectiveness of organization’s selection procedures and the outcomes of these procedures, particularly as they relate to subgroup employment and applicant reactions and behavior. Over the past three years, he has also been working on the development and validation of non-cognitive measures for college admissions.
PAUL SACKETT, Ph.D.
Paul Sackett is currently a Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the Ohio State University in 1979.
Dr. Sackett served as editor of “Personnel Psychology” from 1984 to 1990, and co-authored the text “Perspectives on Employee Staffing and Selection.” He also served as president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Division 14 of the American Psychological Association, as co-chair of the Joint Committee on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, as a member of the National Research Council’s Board on Testing and Assessment, as chair of APA’s Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessments and as chair of APA’s Board of Scientific Affairs. In addition, Dr. Sackett has worked with a wide variety of public and private-sector organizations on the design and evaluation of selection and training systems.
His research interests revolve around various aspects of psychological testing and assessment in workplace settings. He has long been active in the area of the assessment of honesty and integrity in the workplace, publishing comprehensive reviews of the literature in 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1996. His work on issues of fairness and bias in testing includes frequently-cited 1994 and 2001 American Psychologist articles and the 1989 book “Fairness in Employment Testing: Validity Generalization, Minority Issues, and the General Aptitude Test Battery,” produced by a National Academy of Sciences Committee of which he was a member. He also publishes extensively on the assessment of managerial potential and methodological issues in employee selection.
SHELDON ZEDECK, Ph.D.
Sheldon Zedeck is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Bowling Green State University in 1969.
Dr. Zedeck has co-authored a number of books in the field and has written numerous journal articles on the topics of moderator variables, selection and validation, test fairness, banding, performance appraisal, assessment centers, stress and work and family issues. He has served on the editorial boards of the “Journal of Applied Psychology,” “Contemporary Psychology and Industrial Relations.” He has also served as Editor and Associate Editor of “Human Performance,” a journal that he and Frank Landy founded in 1988, as well as Associate Editor of “Applied Psychology: An International Review.” Dr. Zedeck is the current editor of the “Journal of Applied Psychology.” In addition, he was the editor of a research series of books that deals with People and Organizations, published by Routledge (1986 to 1995), and the “Frontiers Series” Editor, sponsored by SIOP, from 1993 to 1998. Also, he is the editor of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology section for the Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology (published by Elsevier in 2004).
Dr. Zedeck served as president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Division 14 of the American Psychological Association during the 1986 / 1987 term. He has been on the Society’s Educational and Training Committee, its Workshop Committee, a Member-at-Large, editor of the Society’s newsletter “TIP,” served on two ad hoc committees concerned with revising the Society’s “Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures” and represented the Society on the APA Council of Representatives. Dr. Zedeck has also served on the executive committees for the Academy of Management’s Personnel/Human Resources Division and for the Society for Organizational Behavior. Finally, Dr. Zedeck has been quite active in consulting with private and public sector organizations and serving as an expert witness in employment discrimination cases.
KEITH M. PYBURN, JR.
Keith Pyburn is a Partner of the law firm Fisher & Phillips, LLP. He received his JD from Tulane University School of Law in 1974 and is a member of the Louisiana Bar Association.
Mr. Pyburn has represented management in the practice of labor relations and employment law since 1975, after serving as a Law Clerk to Justice John Dixon of the Louisiana Supreme Court. He served from 1993 to 1994 as Chairman of the Labor and Employment Law Section. Mr. Pyburn also is a member of the ABA, Section of Labor Employment, Equal Employment Law Committee (1976 -- present). In 1997, Mr. Pyburn was elected a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Mr. Pyburn has served as a member of the Planning Board and its Executive Committee of the Multi-State Labor and Employment Law Conference since 1990. He was also Chairman of the Board of St. George’s Episcopal School from 1989 to 1991. He is listed in the Best Lawyers in America (Woodward / White).
Mr. Pyburn’s publications and lectures include: “Ethical Consideration in Joint Representation of Supervisors and Employers in Sexual Harassment Cases,” The Labor Lawyer, Volume 5, Number 1, Winter 1989; The Consequences of “Joint Employment;" “The Implications of Sturgis and its Progeny,” Southern Methodist University Multi-State Labor and Employment Law Conference, 2002 and “Legal and Technical Developments in the Use and Challenges to the Use of Testing in Employment,” Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2001. He has also addressed such topics as: Testing and the Law; EEOC Litigation, Affirmative Action and the Use of Tests; and Evolving Technical and Legal Standards for Employment Testing and the Setting of Cut Points.
Mr. Pyburn served as special counsel to the City of New Orleans in collective bargaining matters (2000 Firefighter negotiations, 2002 NOPWC negotiations and SEIU grievance regarding dues checkoff); Represented Avondale Shipyards in connection with responding to a union corporate campaign from 1990 to 1999 (Avondale Industries, Inc. v. NLRB, 180 F.3d 633 (5th Cir. 1999; and served as counsel for P.P.G. Industries in their successful defense of the use of paper and pencil employment tests. (Cormier v. P.P.G. Industries, 702 F.2d 767 (5th Cir. 1982).
JOHN WEINER
John Weiner, Vice President, Products & Services for psi selection:assessment, is responsible for the development, enhancement and delivery of PSI’s assessment products, services and consulting solutions. With over 20 years of professional experience in the assessment industry, John has expertise in a wide range of measurement applications, including employee selection, development, training and certification. He joined PSI in 1998 as Manager of Product Development after previously working with PSI as a Consultant for several years in the 1980’s. During his tenure with the Company, John has introduced several new assessment tools and guided the development of web-based delivery for PSI’s published tests on its ATLAS(TM) platform. In addition, he has directed several major consulting projects that have resulted in large-scale proprietary testing programs.
Throughout his career, John has led the development and implementation of assessments used for employee selection in hundreds of business and government organizations. He has worked extensively with technology-based assessments and has expertise in psychometrics and legal issues in testing. Before joining PSI, John served as a consultant to the California Commission on Peace Office Standards, where he led the development of an assessment battery that is used to select California’s 911 Dispatchers.
John is an active participant in several professional testing organizations, including the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) and the American Psychological Association (APA). He has authored numerous scholarly publications and he is a frequent presenter at national conferences. John received a Master of Arts degree in Psychology from California State University, Sacramento, with concentrations in quantitative methods and industrial psychology.
Psychological Services, Inc. (PSI)
CONTACT: Philip S. Viener, VP, Sales and Marketing of psiselection:assessment, +1-800-367-1565
