What is I-O?

Philip Ash received his undergraduate degree from the City College of New York in 1938 and his doctorate in psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1949. During World War II he worked for the Departments of the Army and the Navy devising training methods for military personnel. He worked as an industrial psychologist at the Inland Steel Company in Chicago from 1952 through 1968. He played a major role in promoting and drafting legislation requiring the certification of psychologists in Illinois. While working for industry, he conducted a great deal of research and in 1968 left Inland to become a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During his tenure there, Philip became very involved with the issue of how employment tests discriminate against African-Americans and was a key expert witness in landmark litigation, which ultimately resulted in court holdings prohibiting discriminatory testing. Philip retired from university life in 1980 and became vice president of research and development at Reid Psychological Systems in Chicago, where he worked on developing tests which could assess the honesty of prospective employees. He continued that work as a consultant for London House, Inc., of Park Ridge, IL, when it acquired Reid Psychological Systems. When he retired from London House in 1994, he continued as director of the private consulting firm of Ash, Blackstone and Cates, of Chicago and Blacksburg, Virginia, until he finally fully retired several years before his death.

Philip was very active in professional psychology organizations. Among his many positions, he was elected president of the Chicago Psychological Society, the Illinois Psychological Association, SIOP, and the Virginia Applied Psychology Academy. He very much enjoyed writing and authored over 20 monographs and books and contributed over 50 articles to professional journals. For his work, he received numerous professional honors including Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Psi Chi, the Heiser Award of the American Psychological Association, and the Lifetime Achievement in Psychology Award from the Virginia Psychological Association.

Philip was a member of the Torch Club and University Club in Blacksburg, Virginia. He particularly enjoyed traveling and spending time with his family. 

Peter Ash

John E. (Jack) Hunter

John (Jack) Hunter died June 26, 2002. He had been ill for some time with diabetes, but the immediate cause of death was pneumonia. Jack received his PhD at the early age of 25 from the University of Illinois, where he studied under Lee Cronbach and Ledyard Tucker. Cronbach stated that Jack was the best student he had ever had. Jack spent his entire career as a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, with only sabbaticals spent elsewhere. He was best known in I-O psychology for his contributions in the areas of validity generalization, meta-analysis methods, differential validity/selection fairness, selection utility, and banding of selection test scores. He coauthored two widely used books on meta-analysis. In addition to his work in I-O psychology, he published extensively in other areas; in particular, the areas of communications and attitude change, in which he coauthored a book on mathematical models of attitude change. In total, Jack authored or coauthored over 200 journal articles across a variety of areas. In addition to being a SIOP Fellow, he was a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. He received the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award (jointly with Frank Schmidt) from both the American Psychological Association and SIOP.

It is a gross understatement to say that Jack Hunters life was unusual. He was born in a circus tent in Dayton, Ohio. His mothers parents were musicians with a traveling circus, and his parents were visiting the circus when Jack emerged into the world. His mother was born an Orthodox Jew but became a Presbyterian before Jack was born and raised Jack in that church. His father was Scots-Irish and was killed in World War II. After the war, his mother moved to New Mexico, where Jack was raised in a Mexican-American ghetto in Albuquerque. He always said he was the only Anglo in the whole area; all his friends were Mexican kids. When he was 11, his mentally troubled mother put him in a Presbyterian orphanage for some time but later withdrew him. When he was 18, he left home and lived in his car for months until he graduated from high school.

Jack was an outstanding student in high school but had to conceal this fact from his friends in the neighborhood or risk losing their friendship. At the graduation ceremony his friends were visibly dumbfounded when it was publicly announced that Jack was the top student and valedictorian of the class. Jack had no plans to attend college after graduation. A friend helped him get a routine clerical job at a local bank, where an officer of the bank noticed his unusual level of ability. He urged him to go to college and informed him of his eligibility for his fathers GI Bill education benefits. So he enrolled at the University of New Mexico, where he met his future wife, Ronda. They were married after less than 2 weeks and two datesand remained happily married until his death. Jack had a double major in mathematics and psychology. His professors recognized his ability and urged him to apply to graduate school. In addition to Illinois, he was accepted at several other top psychology departments.

The Michigan State psychology department initially voted to deny Jack tenure because he had published too few articles his first 5 years. He had spent almost all his time coaching, mentoring, developing, and befriending students. The graduate students in the department were incensed by this decision. They protested it vehementlyand got it reversed! The students he had benefited saved his job. This story reveals a lot about Jack. He was always willing to spend any amount of time, up into the wee hours of the morning, helping others with their research, coaching, teaching, and developing them. Many peopleand I am one of themsay they learned more from Jack Hunter than anyone else in their lives. He had almost no ego and cared little for recognition or credit; he often told me he didnt care who got credit for a good idea so long as it got out to the field and was accepted. He was a patient and gentle soul, devoid of the pettiness, envy, and guile so often spawned by academic competitiveness.

I worked with Jack for over 30 years. He was a great friend as well as a great collaborator. I have long thought that the word that best described him is the biblical term preternatural. The story in Genesis relates that before the fall (before original sin), humans were preternatural: The human intellect was clearer, keener, and sharper, and people were not plagued by vices such as jealousy, envy, and greed. This pretty much describes Jack Hunter. He was preternatural. There will probably never be another Jack Hunter. 

Frank Schmidt

Carlla Smith passed away in Houston, Texas, on July 11, 2002, 2 days before her 55th birthday. Carlla fought a courageous battle with cancer for over a year and a half. For at least 10 years, she suffered from a serious autoimmune disorder that may have been responsible in some way for her illness. She leaves a mother and close friends and colleagues, who will sorely miss her.

Carlla grew up in the South Park area of Houston. She graduated from Jones High School and attended the University of Houston where she received a BS in chemistry and mathematics. After several years and an assortment of jobs, she entered the Rice I-O program where she earned her PhD in the early 1980s. Her first faculty position was at the University of Tulsa. In 1985 she joined the faculty at Bowling Green State University where she spent the remainder of her career. At BGSU she rose to the rank of professor of psychology and from 19931998 was director of the I-O program. She was a fellow of APA and was active in not only SIOP but also divisions 5 and 21 of APA, the Human Factors Society, and the International Stress Management Association.

Carllas primary specialization was occupational health psychology, with particular interests in organizational stress and stress management, the effects of shift work on health and work effectiveness, individual differences in worker well-being and attitudes, and measurement issues in field research. At the time of her death, she was on the editorial boards of Human Factors and the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. In 1998, she received one of the first grants from NIOSH to support joint I-O and occupational health programs. She was a founder of the Occupational Health Program at Bowling Green and served as co-director. She authored a textbook in I-O, Understanding Industrial-Organizational Psychology (with R. Dipboye and W. C. Howell). Unfortunately, she missed seeing the publication of her second book, Work Stress (with L. Sulsky), which is scheduled for release in the coming months by Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Despite her health problems over the last decade, Carlla was hard at work right down to the last few weeks and never gave up on life. Carlla was a tough Texan who was not about to allow her condition to get in the way of the things she loved doing: socializing with her friends, caring for her cat, traveling, practicing Riznica meditation, and of course, her profession. In spite of her illness, she participated as a discussant in a symposium at the SIOP meetings in April and was looking forward to spending a sabbatical year at Rice University.

In her research, teaching, and professional activities, Carlla was deeply committed to that aspect of SIOPs mission concerned with enhancing the well-being of people through improvement of their working conditions. Carlla left us before she had a chance to conduct all the research she wanted to conduct and before she was able to publish all the books and articles she hoped to publish. Nevertheless, she made important accomplishments to the profession that will be remembered. But despite her successes, Carllas greatest source of pride when I spoke to her about her work was not her curriculum vitae but the students at Bowling Green. The influence she had on their lives is legacy enough.

Donations in Carllas memory can be made to the following organizations: Hospice of Northwest Ohio, 30000 E. River Road, Perrysburg, OH 43551; Wood County Humane Society, 801 Van Camp Road, Bowling Green, OH 43402.