George A. Sissel is a member of the board of directors and former chairman and CEO of Ball Corporation. Mr. Sissel joined Ball in 1970 in Boulder, Colo., and transferred to the former Muncie, Ind, headquarters in 1972, where he served as general counsel, corporate secretary, senior vice president, president and CEO. Mr. Sissel relocated, along with Ball's corporate headquarters, to Broomfield, Colo., in 1998. He retired as CEO in January 2001.

He is a member and past chairman of the board of Governors for the Can Manufacturers Institute; is a director of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Mountain States Employers Council, the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, and First Merchants Corporation; and is a member and vice-chairman of the University of Colorado at Boulder Engineering Advisory Council and a member of the Board of Advisors for the University of Colorado at Denver College of Business. Mr. Sissel serves on the Banc One Equity Capital Board of Advisors, is a member of the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America, Denver Area Council, and is a member of Rotary International in Denver.

A member of the American Bar Association, the Colorado Bar Association and the Indiana Bar Association, Mr. Sissel is admitted to practice in Colorado, Indiana and federal courts and before the United States Supreme Court.

Born in Chicago on July 30, 1936, Mr. Sissel graduated from Colorado Springs High School in 1954. He received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1958, and served in the U.S. Navy until 1963, when he left active duty as a lieutenant. In 1966, Mr. Sissel received a Juris Doctor (cum laude) degree from the University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and was an editor of the Minnesota Law Review.

Prior to his career with Ball, Mr. Sissel was an attorney with the Denver law firm of Sherman & Howard. In 1984, he completed and was class chairman of the Program for Senior Executives at MIT's Sloan School of Management and served on the inaugural board of governors for that program. He was a member of the teaching faculty of the political science department of Ball State University, Muncie.