Obituaries
Mary L. Tenopyr (19292005)
by Nancy Tippins
Mary L. Tenopyr, a giant in the field of industrial and organizational psychology, died November 30, 2005.
Mary received her undergraduate and masters degree from Ohio University in 1951 and her PhD from the University of Southern California in 1966. Her long career included employment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, North American Aviation, Inc. (later Rockwell International), the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and AT&T.
Mary was active in professional affairs throughout her career. She served in many roles in Division 14 (the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) and Division 5 (Evaluation Measurement and Statistics) including the president of SIOP in 19791980.
Marys expertise was in the area of employment testing. A small sample of her many contributions include the development of a selection testing program for AT&T that addressed race and sex discrimination and satisfied the requirements of a Consent Decree in the late 1970s. She served on all four of the committees that developed SIOPs Principles for the Use and Validation of Personnel Selection Procedures and revised them. She actively participated in the revision to the
Standards for Educational and Psychological Tests and wrote numerous sets of comments on the 1999 revision. She worked extensively with the Equal Employment Advisory Council to influence the revisions to the 1970
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures.
SIOP and APA recognized Marys many contributions and elected her a Fellow in 1972. SIOP recognized Mary with two of its highest awards, the Distinguished Professional Contributions Award in 1984 and the Distinguished Service Contributions Award in 1991.
The details of Marys career and contributions to the field of industrial and organizational psychology are impressive. Yet, the most impressive aspect of Mary was Mary the person. She was brilliant, perceptive, and devastatingly funny. She was hard working and dependable. She read deeply and broadly. Even in her sickest days, she was reading journals and writing commentary. She adored dogs and adopted many a stray. Most of all she was generous with her time and wisdom. She cared deeply about people and nurtured the careers of many industrial and organizational psychologists. Many of us have Mary to thank for our own successes.
Everyone who knew Mary has a story. I first met Mary when I was employed at Exxon, and she visited Paul Sparks. Of course I knew of Mary, but I had never met her. I was quite excited about meeting a luminary of my profession, and I was pleased that she even noticed me and took time to chat. I suppose I thought someone so important could not possibly be human because I was stunned that she picked up a picture of our secretarys child and discussed for some time how beautiful this child was and how such a beautiful child must also be smart and obedient.
My next encounter with Mary was when I joined Bell Atlantic shortly after AT&T divested itself of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (i.e., the phone companies). I often think how she must have felt being forced to give away her carefully crafted selection program to the likes of me. A less kind and generous person might have advised the new psychologists at the RBOCs that they were on their ownsink or swim. Not Mary. She made sure we all knew we could rely on her for advice, and that we did. Mary always came to our rescue.
I once had the nerve to call Mary the Phyllis Diller of I-O Psychology at our conference. She preceded me in one of those programs in which you are supposed to talk about your career and how you got to where you are now. Marys talk was absolutely hilarious. Her sense of humor about the obstacles she had confronted was obvious. After the audience quit laughing, I had to get up and talk about my rather mundane life. The only thing I could think to do was to chastise the chair of the session for making me follow the Phyllis Diller of I-O psychology.
I will never know how many opportunities Ive received in my career that originated with Mary. She had a big Rolodex and used it often. Im grateful for Marys kindness and her friendship.
Marys last contribution to SIOP and our profession was a donation to the SIOP Foundation for scholarships. With Marys generous gift and those of her many friends, the Foundation has established the Mary L. Tenopyr Scholarship Fund.
April 2006 Table
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