James E. Hammer Receives RIT Entrepreneurial Award

ROCHESTER, NY—James E. Hammer, president and CEO of Hammer Packaging, is the 2008 recipient of Rochester Institute of Technology’s Herbert W. Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award. Hammer was honored during a luncheon on April 23 as he accepted one of the area’s most prestigious business awards.

The annual award goes to a successful business leader who has positively impacted the local economy with innovative management skills that have also changed the course of an existing business. Hammer became president of the family-owned company in 1983. Since then, the company has invested more than $100 million in new equipment and seen its sales grow from $4 million annually to $90 million in 2007 and its employment from fewer than 20 people to more than 400.