By Megan Hamby, Editorial Director
At Hammock, we like to think of ourselves as a 31-year-old startup organization. Although we have a long history of serving clients and delivering powerful content marketing solutions, we strive to be “disruptors” in the industry—changing the ways organizations think about content.
This philosophy comes from Hammock’s founder, Rex Hammock, who announced his retirement from Hammock on April 6, 2022. More than 30 years ago, Rex saw an opportunity for brands to go direct to customers—initially with print magazines. When he started Hammock Inc. in 1991, it was a custom publishing agency, utilizing the then novel technology of desktop publishing to create creative media that was every bit as good as what was on the newsstands. Today, Hammock Inc. is a unique agency that creates content to be deployed across a diverse media landscape—and we owe that reputation to Rex’s strategic vision and leadership over the past 31 years.
Rex was a pioneer in the content marketing industry. Prior to founding Hammock, he was the founder/partner of a public relations subsidiary of one of the largest regional advertising agencies in the South, a congressional speechwriter and a press secretary. In 1999, he co-founded the national trade association that today is called the Custom Content Council. That same year, he started SmallBusiness.com, a site dedicated to helping small-business owners and managers get the right information for important decisions. Rex was a trailblazer in blogging—in 2004, he became the first person to blog a meeting with a president, when he met with President George W. Bush.
Most importantly, Rex created a positive company culture at Hammock—one that values teamwork, engagement, communication and collaboration. In an industry where people change jobs every few years, Hammock’s employees have stayed on board—with some celebrating 25th anniversaries. He has cheered his employees on in professional and personal achievements, celebrated marriages and growing families, and made us laugh more times than we can count.
On April 6, 2022, Rex and John Lavey, incoming CEO, announced the completion of a management buyout. The transaction is part of a long-term succession plan that Rex and John developed together over many years—and it allows Hammock Inc. to continue successfully executing their strategic vision, aligning it with the market’s need for effective and innovative content marketing solutions. Although Rex will no longer be driving Hammock, his legacy lives on in the way we approach content marketing and deliver the highest-quality service to our clients.
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