About Us

Paul Hammack was involved in insurance for over 30 years. He started at Professional Insurance Associates, Inc. (PIA) in junior high school and, after graduating college at U.C. Davis in economics, began working full time at the agency. Through years of hard work he became the CEO of PIA.  Paul was an acknowledged industry expert in commercial insurance, particularly small business and workers compensation insurance. He was a member of numerous insurance company advisory boards and actively advocated for the industry to leverage technology to the benefit of clients. Paul was a certified insurance continuing education instructor; he particularly liked teaching and mentoring agents at PIA in insurance practices, law and policy coverage in order to to continually increase the quality of the agents’ knowledge so they could better serve clients.

Paul Hammack long lamented that smart, young people were not entering the insurance industry and wanted to encourage more students to learn about risk management and enter careers in the insurance industry. After his tragic death, killed in a car crash by a drunk driver, we knew that the best way to honor his work and memory was to try to make his ideas about revitalizing the insurance industry a reality.  To that end, we started this foundation to support education in risk management, to provide college scholarships, internships and job connections within the insurance industry.