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ABOUT KIM HAMER
Leadership Trainer.
Keynote Speaker. HR Strategist.
Author.
And the woman who learned about grief the hard way
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THE BEGINNING
They met in a cave.
Literally.
Kim Hamer was working for a company that took high school students on adventure trips when she met Art. He was a teacher. At 6'6", crawling into a cave was not his idea of fun — but he had a great time the first time, so he came back the next day.
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Three years later, they were married. Three kids. Three states. A full, fast, beautiful life. In 2006, they were living in Los Angeles. Life was good.
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Six weeks after this photo was taken, everything changed.
THE DIAGNOSIS
And then the doctor said, " You have cancer."
Art went for a six-mile run one morning and came home after one mile.
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"I feel like I can't breathe," he said.
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A week later, Kim and Art sat in a doctor's office staring at an x-ray of Art's chest covered in white specks. The doctor could not yet tell them what kind of cancer it was.
But he could tell them it was serious.
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It was Stage IV Large B-Cell Testicular Lymphoma.
Advanced. Aggressive.
Art was hospitalized within days..
They could not even wait for him to heal from surgery before starting chemotherapy.
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Kim remembers the first bag of chemo arriving. The nurses wore PPE and special gloves to protect their own skin from the drug that was about to go into Art's body.
Art and Kim looked at each other and started to cry.
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What followed was a crash course in what it really means to support someone through loss — and the painful gap between wanting to help and knowing how.
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Tower of Tuberware from one month of meals
THE LOSS
He was 44 Years
old
Kim was with Art when he died. She sat at his feet and watched him take his last breath. Early Thursday morning, in a hospital room, with her three children having already said goodbye.
"Being there still feels like his last great gift to me."
Last family photo with Art 2007
THE PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY
Grief followed her back to work.
And that changed everything
Two years after Art died, Kim returned to HR — her first professional love. In her first role back, her boss's wife was dying. She watched the organization fumble through it. Flowers. Food. Then silence. The team fractured. Her boss eventually lost his job.
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As she continued her career in HR, she kept hearing the same stories. Managers who wanted to do more but had no roadmap. Teams left to figure it out alone. Grieving employees who came back to work and felt invisible.
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But she also heard the rare story of an organization that got it exactly right. One that checked in for months, equipped their leaders with tools, and used grief to build something stronger.
Those stories proved it was possible.
She had the HR expertise. She had lived the grief.
She had seen both sides of what happens when organizations show up and when they don't.
So she built Workplace Grief.
THE BOOK
First came the book.
Before Workplace Grief, there was 100 Acts of Love — a practical, and easy guide answering the question everyone asks when someone they love is grieving:
what do I say? What do I do?
Now expanding into a series for HR leaders, managers, and partners. Coming soon.
Currently out of stock. Join the waitlist to be notified when it returns.
TODAY
No Organization Has to Face This Moment Without a Plan.
Kim is the founder of Workplace Grief, a leadership training and advisory firm helping organizations navigate the two most common grief scenarios they will face. Through keynote speaking, training, advisory work, and the upcoming AI platform Milo, Kim and her team equip HR leaders, managers, and employees to lead through loss with clarity, compassion, and confidence.
"Grief does not go away.
But with the right support, it doesn't have to destroy a team either."
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