Meet the COHRE Staff – Patrick McCarthy, Ph.D., J.D.

Patrick McCarthy, Ph.D., J.D.
Associate Director & Senior Consultant

Areas of Expertise
Organizational Assessment and Development, Strategic Planning, Job Analysis, Selection, and Legal Issues

Dr. McCarthy has over 35 years of experience as an organizational consultant, and has worked with a wide range of organizations in both the public and private sectors.

He is the Associate Director of the Center for Organizational and Human Resource Effectiveness (COHRE). He previously worked for the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Development, and with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Office of Systems Innovation and their Personnel Research and Development Center in Washington, D.C.

Dr. McCarthy’s areas of expertise include organizational development, strategic planning,        job analysis, selection, performance appraisal, training, organizational assessment, group facilitation, organizational change, motivation, attitudes and organizational culture, and legal issues. He has worked with over 70 clients, including Nissan, FedEx, State Farm Insurance, HCA Healthcare, Proctor and Gamble, Gaylord Entertainment, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Pearl Drum, Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST), U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and many more.

Dr. McCarthy’s experience includes comprehensive job analysis and training needs analysis for Tennessee POST regarding law enforcement officer positions statewide. His experience also includes major organizational assessment and strategic redesign projects. For instance, he led the Tennessee Board of Regents’ assessment of its leadership and systems effectiveness in managing 46 state universities, community colleges, and colleges of applied technology. He also led the assessment and redesign of the Regents’ Online Campus Collaborative (a.k.a., TN eCampus), which was Tennessee’s primary entity for online education. In the federal sector, Dr. McCarthy was senior manager for the U.S. Department of Energy’s evaluation of the State Energy Program for all U.S. states and territories. Previously, he worked for the U.S. Department of Defense to develop a model of organizational performance for innovation-oriented organizations, and conducted job analyses for U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Dr. McCarthy is a Professor and the Graduate Program Director for Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University. He received his Ph.D. in I-O Psychology from George Mason University, and his J.D. from the Nashville School of Law.

Dr. McCarthy is a licensed attorney and a member of the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Division. He served on the Murfreesboro City Board of Education, and also served on the Leadership Development Executive Board for the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education.