About MSA   Overview   Founder & Chairman   PhD Thesis (1958)

Dr. Alfred A. Kuehn Founder & Chairman A professor for 15 years at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (Tepper Business School), he was a pioneer in applying analytical methods to the study of consumer behavior and dynamic marketing processes. Dr. Alfred Kuehn founded MSA in 1963 to analyze new product introductions and the effects of advertising, price and sales promotions. At the time, few of the Operations Research (OR) R&D concepts were being applied to product marketing and Market Research. Dr. Kuehn’s PhD thesis (1958) was titled "An Analysis of the Dynamics of Consumer Behavior and its Implications for Marketing Management". Year 2000 winner of the Michael J. Naples Research Industry Leadership Award from the Advertising Research Foundation. Founding Principles The cost of computing required using applications where optimized solutions had significant value. New product introductions were a primary focus for the first several years in MSA’s history. MSA's first innovation was the use of OR R&D concepts, used to study dynamic processes of industrial products, applied against new product introductions in the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. MSA was first incorporated in 1963 as Market Science Associates to concentrate on analyzing dynamic processes to forecast marketing outcomes using computers. Consistent with Dr. Kuehn's management philosophy, MSA today is administered via a 4 person operating team known as the Office of the Executives (OE). The OE is comprised of Dr. Kuehn, who provides guidance on a consulting basis; Cathy A. Opsitnick, President & CEO of MSA; Dr. Timothy McGuire, Chief Analytics Officer and Sr. Executive Vice President; and H. Alec Boright, Executive Vice President.