Author: Lorin Mueller

The Personnel Testing Council Metro Washington (PTCMW) is pleased to honor Dr. Ilene Gast as the winner of the 2018 PTCMW Service Award. The award is given to members who have volunteered significant time to further the goals of PTCMW, and the winner is selected by a vote among the past presidents of PTCMW.

Dr. Gast has a long history of serving as a PTCMW board member, presenter, and perhaps most notably served as the organization’s President in 1987. She was nominated by Martha Hennen and Kathlea Vaughn. From her letter of nomination:

“Ilene Gast is a true reflection of the scientist‐practitioner. She has demonstrated her commitment to the I/O profession through her education, career pursuits, and her active professional membership in PTCMW, SIOP, APA, and IPAC. Ilene currently serves as an Emeritus Personnel Research Psychologist providing expert consultation on employee selection and survey design projects with Millefiori Associates. Ilene retired from her long tenure as a Senior Personnel Research Psychologist at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where she spent the bulk of her long and fruitful career. Ilene’s work at the U.S. CBP pioneered efforts to embrace authentic assessment, including in‐basket and computerized assessment, in the federal government. Dr. Gast was part of the CBP team supporting the design of logic based measurement (LBM) for purposes of employee selection and promotion. She spent the bulk of her time with CBP working on promotional exams for supervisors, managers, and executives. Ilene earned her doctoral degree from George Washington University and an undergraduate degree in Psychology from American University.”

In her acceptance, Dr. Gast noted “how thrilled I am to be honored by PTC — being especially grateful to those who nominated me, and to my esteemed colleagues who made it possible for me to be selected. I’ll also touch on how important PTC was to my own development—participating on committees and taking various roles on the board was some of the best leadership training that I received during my career.   PTC also provides a means for members to remain current, to exchange information and ideas with others, and to receive mentoring and mentor others.”

Past recipients of the Service Award include Lance Saberhagen, Ted Hayes, Ted Rosen, and Dan Putka. The following is a link to PTCMW’s awards page: http://www.ptcmw.org/Awards