Cornerstone's Core Consultants
Joe Thoresen
Joe Thoresen, Cornerstone’s founding consultant, became a licensed industrial/ organizational psychologist in 1976. After graduate school, he joined the team at Rohm and Haas, where he specialized in hiring, selection, and management training. Joe attained the title of Manager of Training and Organization Development before leaving to begin a consulting career. He was one of the first consultants to specialize in applications of the assessment center method.
In 1983, Joe founded Cornerstone Management Resource Systems, a company focused on applying real-world experience and published research to improvements in assessment center methodology. This effort grew into the creation of an internal promotion/development process and an entirely different type of assessment center.
Carl Thoresen
Carl joined the Cornerstone team after working as Assistant Professor of industrial/organizational psychology at Tulane University. As an internationally recognized author and researcher on employee selection, job attitudes, employee assessment, and the role of personality in job performance, Carl brings a unique, research-oriented perspective to the design and implementation of Cornerstone's programs. He has extensive training and experience in test development and validation.
After graduating from Northwestern University, Carl earned an M.S. degree in organizational behavior from Cornell University. He later completed his Ph.D. in human resource management with a minor concentration in personality and social psychology at the University of Iowa.
Denise Meyer Kennell
Denise brings a wealth of diverse management and training experience to Cornerstone. She came to Cornerstone from a position as senior manager with America Online (AOL), where her responsibilities included career/leadership development, training, policy writing, data analysis, and online programming. While at AOL, Denise managed both employees and volunteers from a remote environment - experience that she now puts to work for Cornerstone's clients.
Denise's degree in industrial/organizational psychology is as critical in developing the content of our programs as her IT experience is in delivering them. In addition to her contributions to designing training materials and Job Function Simulations, she was instrumental in creating our online evaluation and report-writing processes. Denise holds a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. from Kansas State University.
In addition to our core consultants, we have a broad network of associates strategically located throughout the country. All have backgrounds in industrial/organizational psychology or have held very responsible positions in the sales training departments of major healthcare sales organizations.