Thayer, Paul A.

Paul W. Thayer was born in Birmingham, Alabama on July 18, 1927. He was the fifth son of Hugh and Elizabeth Thayer. Thayer grew up around the country as the family moved often for his father's job at DuPont.

In 1942-1943 while attending Swarthmore High School, Thayer enrolled in the Penn State wartime program which allowed students to begin their first semester while still a high school senior. Thayer entered Penn State at age 16 and received his high school diploma on D-Day in 1944.

Thayer started at Pennsylvania State University as a business major but switched to psychology in his second semester. At 18 Thayer joined the US Merchant Marine Cadet Corps. and took the engineering track. After a tour in Asia (to distribute aid) Thayer returned to the US Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) to complete his degree in engineering. Thayer returned to Penn State to complete his psychology degree in 1949. During the summers of 1949 and 1950, Thayer worked at the personnel research office at DuPont. He graduated from both Penn State and from the USMMA in 1950.

Thayer started a PhD in psychology at Ohio State University in 1950. Thayer interned with Bill McGehee in the summer of 1953 and was offered a position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1954. In 1956 Thayer accepted a position at the Life Insurance Agency Management Association (LIAMA).

Thayer served as president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) from 1976-1977. In 1977 Thayer left LIAMA for a Professorship at North Carolina State University (NCSU) where he stayed until his retirement in 1993.

Thayer's most well known publication is Training in Business and Industry, co-authored in 1961 with William McGehee.

From the guide to the Paul W. Thayer papers, 1958-1996, (Center for the History of Psychology)