Upon graduating from the University of Illinois with a B.S. in chemical engineering, Miller went to work with Shell at the Deer Park refinery outside of Houston, Texas, in the cracking and distillation operations. He moved on to a stint at Shell's head office in
New York, and then in the
Netherlands at
the Hague, in 1973. By 1988, he had become the VP of marketing and refining, and in 1992, he was promoted to the Royal Dutch/Shell Group Management Team, in London, where he oversaw global supply and marketing operations. Miller became one of the five managing directors of Shell in 1996, where he started the Grassroots Leadership Program. This was an effort designed to improve the company's operations through acquiring feedback from employees at all levels and departments, and helping those employees develop and implement new business strategies to address the problems they saw. His work in employing grassroots leadership was instrumental in turning around several of Shell's troubled and failing operations worldwide, most notably in
Malaysia,
Austria, and
France – where brought profits into the double-digits.
Retirement In his time at Shell, Miller was noted for his dedication to community service, and after retirement, was able to give more of his time to charitable causes. He has done this primarily through SLM Discovery Ventures, Inc., which supports community outreach, higher education, and volunteer efforts through commercial projects. Additionally, Miller has remained active in the business community, serving on the boards of
Applied Materials, a
semiconductor wafer fabrication company in
Santa Clara, California (1999–2005), and
Reliant Energy in Houston (2003–present); and as chairman of the board of the Greater Houston Partnership (2002), Momentum Bio Ventures, Inc. (2003–2004). In 2003 and 2004, he chaired CEO Diversity Initiative for Diversity Best Practices in Washington, D.C., and is a former member of the
Business Roundtable and
National Petroleum Council. He has also served on the Texas Governor's Business Council and as a director for the
American Petroleum Institute. ==Awards==