Richard Hamer

Richard Hamer is the Managing Principal of Deft Research. Rich and his partners Randy Herman and Dan Freier founded Deft Research in 2005. Since then, Deft has become a highly regarded market insights firm, noted for its understanding of the health care industry and the needs of its executives. From 1992 to 2004 Mr. Hamer was the Executive Director of InterStudy.

Rich has focused Deft on developing insights out of the attitudes and behavior of health consumers. Deft is well known for its research on consumer loyalty and brand value, as well as information produced to guide product development and market strategy.

Throughout his career, developing insight that reduces uncertainty and financial risk for clients has been Rich’s mission. He has done this in many areas including information technology, managed care finance, the indemnity health insurance market, the self-insured employer health plan market, and PPO operations. He is a secondary author of a major publication (book), Managed Care and the Treatment of Chronic Illness, (Sage Publications), and of several articles appearing in peer reviewed journals. Mr. Hamer is an active public speaker and appears regularly at various industry conferences.

Mr. Hamer has earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Toronto.