CASSEL, Russell Napoleon 1911-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 18, 1911, in Harrisburg, PA; died of congestive heart failure, May 18, 2004, in Chula Vista, CA. Psychologist, educator, and author. Cassel developed a number of psychology tests and later founded the publishing company Project Innovation. Earning a B.S. in education from Millersville State College in 1937 and a master's in 1939 from Pennsylvania State University, he taught junior high school and was a school psychologist in Pennsylvania in the late 1930s. When World War II started, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force, serving as a chief psychologist and studying the psychological profiles of soldiers in the stockade, as well as studying soldiers going through courts martial and the psychological effects of combat. After the war, he completed his doctorate at the University of Southern California in 1949, teaching at the university and researching preschool children for two years before the Korean conflict once again returned him to military duty. He was stationed in San Antonio, Texas, as a research psychologist supervising reserve officer training and rising to the rank of colonel. He left the military in 1957 to return to teaching and school psychology, first in Phoenix, Arizona, for two years and then as director of pupil personnel services at Lompoc Unified Schools in California until 1961. From 1961 to 1967, Cassel was involved in the Vietnam conflict by serving as an advisor to Vietnam universities; he would later also advise schools in Liberia. Next, he took a post as a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, where he remained until his 1974 retirement. Though supposedly retired, Cassel remained active by founding Project Innovation, which published psychology journals; with his extensive background in creating psychological tests in schools and for the military, he also created other educational products, such as a computer program to assist parents in recognizing the signs of drug addiction in their children. Cassel led Project Innovation until 2003. Always concerned about education and passionate about teaching, Cassel was the author of several books, including The Psychology of Child Discipline (1955), Drug Abuse Education (1971), and School Dropout Odyssey: A Tragic Health Crisis (1991).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Washington Post, May 29, 2004, p. B6.

ONLINE

SignOnSanDiego.com,http://signonsandiego.printthis.clickability.com/ (May 23, 2004).