History of the Firm

After completing post-doctoral work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980, Dr. Stone was invited to join the firm, Psychological Resources, and its senior psychologist, Dr. Herbert Eber, co-author of the 16PF and pioneer in the application of computer technology to the practice of psychological assessment. During his six years with Psychological Resources, initially as an associate and later as a partner, Dr. Stone served as liaison to more than 300 client law enforcement-public safety agencies from coast to coast. In 1986, one of these clients, the City of Atlanta, asked Dr. Stone to assume the role of staff public safety psychologist, a role that involved extensive involvement in a wide range of police psychology activities, from forensic hypnosis and criminal profiling to fitness for duty and psychological screening. During that time, the City of Atlanta Department of Public Safety arranged for Dr. Stone to undergo Law Enforcement training and to receive police certification through its police academy.

While working for Atlanta, Dr. Stone was asked by several local law enforcement agencies to provide psychological screening and fitness evaluation on their behalf, and this led to the establishment of a part-time sole practitioner consulting service dedicated to the provision of specialized law enforcement psychological services. In 1991, because the demand for his services had grown beyond his ability to undertake the consultations on a part time basis, Dr. Stone resigned from the City of Atlanta to devote himself to his practice. By 1998, Dr. Stone was providing regular psychological services to more than forty client public safety agencies as well as legal consultation, expert witness services, private sector screening, threat assessment, and fitness for duty evaluations for a variety of public and private sector organizations. Needing to expand the practice, Dr. Stone persuaded Eugene Schmuckler, Ph.D., then Director of the Behavioral Science Unit at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, to join his practice, which by then was called Stone and Associates. A year later, in 1999, Stone and Associates evolved into a partnership between Dr. Schmuckler and Dr. Stone.

The number of agencies served subsequently expanded to include a large number of counties and municipalities within the Atlanta metropolitan area as well as State of Georgia law enforcement agencies, agencies outside the metro area, and some federal agencies. The staff of Stone and Associates expanded over the next several years. In 2003, Dr. Adrienne Bradford, Chief Psychologist with the City of Atlanta public safety departments, left her position to join the practice. The following year saw more change in the practice. Dr. Jeff Weber, who had been the police psychologist for several large law enforcement agencies in the Atlanta area, merged his practice into Stone and Associates. Shortly thereafter, an associate of Dr. Weber's, Craig Kerley, Ph.D. became a consultant. Also in 2004 Dr. Schmuckler retired from practice to focus on his teaching activities.

While in the 1990's Stone and Associates had provided services to agencies outside Georgia, it was not until 2004 that services outside Georgia became a substantial portion of our business. In August 2004, Stone and Associates was awarded the contract to provide services to public safety agencies within Suffolk County, New York, a contract that included the county agencies as well as the local public safety agencies within the county. The contract with Suffolk County was renewed in 2006, and meanwhile Stone and Associates had been asked to provide additional services to New York agencies outside of Suffolk County.

Within the past two years, Stone and Associates has added four new staff members: Jason King, Ph.D. and Heather McElroy, Ph.D. in the Atlanta area, Helen Stevens, Ph.D., and Jennifer Gonder, Ph.D. in the New York City area.

Our most recent development is the evolution of state of the art software that facilitates and standardizes psychological testing, eases the appointment scheduling process, and allows rapid turnaround of psychological reports. The unique element of the system, however, is that it is designed to permit remote psychological testing and remote interviewing via two-way video.