John Lavey works with the team of talented professionals at Hammock Inc. to ensure the highest quality experience for all stakeholders in our work: clients, readers, employees, advertisers and other business partners.

John grew up on the Pampas of Argentina herding chinchillas on his parent’s ranch (This portion of his CV has never actually been verified, leading some to believe he grew up in Northern Virginia), building John’s lifelong aptitude for hard work and his discerning eye for beautiful fur coats.

At age 17, John left home to pursue an education in America at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. After college, an internship as a magazine writer led him to pursue “paid” (barely) journalism in Northern Virginia as a staff writer and editor of a weekly and daily newspaper. After meeting the woman who would become his wife, he married, moved to Nashville and became a writer for the Nashville Business Journal, covering the health care and the Metro government beats.

John joined Hammock in 1996 as an editor. He went to business school at night, earning an M.B.A. from the internationally reputed Massey School of Business at Belmont University (yes, the same school that was a No. 16 seed in last year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament). John has served in a number of client service and editorial roles at Hammock, and added business development and internal operational responsibilities to his job.

In his non-Hammock life, John devotes time to his household of females—wife, Hannah, lovely daughters, Frances and Mary Sparks—and the other male in the house, their dog, Winston. He serves his church and his community, including his involvement on the board of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee. He enjoys reading, cooking and being outside for a multitude of manly activities, including running, biking, attending Titans games and hunting birds—especially stalking the most noble of all quarries, the American Wild Turkey.