Larry M Starr

Education

Born in Toronto, Canada, Starr graduated from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada with a B.A. in Psychology then earned an M.S. degree in Experimental Psychology from Villanova University, Villanova, PA in 1973. He earned a Ph.D. in Social-Organizational Psychology from University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from the Canada Council Foundation, now the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. While a doctoral candidate he had a teaching appointment in the School of Management at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and was a clinical psychology intern at the Ontario Hospital School for Retarded Children at Cedar Springs in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada.

Educational and Professional Activities

Between 1959 and 1965, Starr studied radio, television and theatre at the National Music Camp, now Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and while participating in high school theatre competitions twice won the Sears Ontario Drama Festival Award. In college between 1966 and 1970, he was Executive Producer of the University of Western Ontario Drama Guild, now Theatre Western.

From 1979 until 1998 he created and was President of Oxygenics, Inc., in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, a medical equipment and training company. Between 1984 and 1998, he was Research Director for Oxygen Therapy Institute (OTI) a medical device manufacturer in Livonia, Michigan. From 1997–1998, he was Science Director for County Line Limited, in Solon, Ohio. In 1998 he sold Oxygenics, Inc. to SOS International which sold it to Complient Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Medical Research and Education for both organizations. Complient was subsequently sold to Cardiac Science Corporation, a subsidiary of Opto Cardiac Care Ltd., Bengaluru, India.

During his corporate tenure, Starr was a member of several professional/government-advisory groups including the American Society for Testing and Materials and Compressed Gas Association, and he participated in advisory meetings in collaboration with the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He also participated in several US advisory committees which set or recommended standards and policies for the use of emergency first aid and medical equipment in the US and abroad.

Academic Appointments

In 1984, while maintaining his corporate and advisory roles, he received an adjunct professor appointment from Villanova University where he taught until 2000 in the graduate program of Human Organization Science and in the Departments of Psychology and Political Science. In 2001 he received an appointment to create then direct a Master of Science in Organizational Development and Leadership program at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine a freestanding medical school in Philadelphia, PA. In 2002 he accepted an appointment to be Executive Director and Senior Scholar in the Organizational Dynamics Graduate Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research and Scholarship

Starr has published and presented more than 120 scholarly documents including books, book chapters, academic papers, training films, and conference papers on a wide range of topics including education and test construction, conspiracy perception, decision making, ethics and moral behavior, leadership, organizational coaching, emergency oxygen equipment, first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillation, hazardous materials emergency planning, and personality and chocolate. He has been a funded researcher for the American Heart Association and author of health education and training materials for the National Safety Council. For his contributions to the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the professional society specializing in the branch of clinical medicine most active in the field of Occupational Health, he was awarded the 2002 Meritorious Service Award, the only non-physician to receive this in the College’s history. He also holds a copyright for the “Control of Anxiety in Lifesaving Method (CALM)” © a technique that blends stress management with emergency care training and responding. Since 2004, he has been studying and writing about the application of systems and design thinking to complex organization problems. To support this, he and colleagues established a multi-disciplinary, multi-institution collaborative research and practice community, the Special Task Force on Reframing the System of Survival for Sudden Cardiac Arrest.