Commissioner Hie was born in a small village outside of Dachau, Germany to parents that fled Hungary in January of 1945, as the Red
Army was fighting in and around Budapest.  Along with a small caravan of ox carts, his family moved across Hungary and Austria and settled in Bavaria, Germany. Eventually John and his four siblings, along with their mother and father, left the seaport town of Bremerhaven, Germany on board the General Adolphus Greeley and arrived in the United States at the port of New Orleans in October of 1951. The Hie family came to the U.S. as part of the Displaced Persons Act – an act on the part of the federal government authorizing the admission into the U.S. a limited number of Europeans displaced following World War II. The Hie family’s admission into the U.S. was sponsored by a farmer in Maury County, Tennessee; and following their transition to Middle Tennessee, the Hie family immediately began to learn the English language and the culture of the south. 

Commissioner Hie attended grammar school in a two room school house and graduated from Columbia Central High School in Columbia, Tennessee.  At that time, there were several smoke stack industries in Maury County that provided jobs for summer employment.  These jobs and along with some scholarships, paid for Commissioner Hie’s college education.  Commissioner Hie graduated from the University of Tennessee’s College of Pharmacy in 1969 and was drafted into the army the following year.  His pharmacy training enabled him to work as a pharmacist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – which he described as an invaluable experience.  After an honorable discharge from the army,  Commissioner Hie and a business partner opened their own drugstore and ran it for ten years before selling it.   

Commissioner Hie transitioned from the world of pharmacy to the world of finance, beginning work for the venerable JC Bradford investment firm in 1984 advising clients about their investments.  After the sale of JC Bradford in the year 2000, John went to work for investment firm Stephens, Inc. of Little Rock, Arkansas.  John eventually retired from Stephens in 2015 to spend more time with family and friends, although he still works a few hours a week at Carezone Pharmacy in Nashville.  John and his wife Trish have one son, one daughter-in-law, one grandson AJ, and one grand-dog named Luna.

Executive Administrative Assistant: Ashlee Hatfield

Contact Commissioner Hie via e-mail at ashlee.hatfield@tn.gov