Word: millers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Miller was an early success. Born in Sapulpa, Okla., he received a degree in marine engineering from the Coast Guard Academy in 1945 and was stationed in Shanghai. There, in 1946, he met and married his wife Ariadna, of Russian parentage, who had lived in Harbin, Manchuria. In 1952, he received a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley and settled in as an attorney at Cravath, Swaine and Moore, the prestigious Wall Street law firm. While there he became friendly with Royal Little, the New England businessman who was putting together Textron, one of the first conglomerates...
Since Little's day, conglomerates have become a dirty word on Wall Street; many hastily concocted ones fell apart. Textron is different: under Miller's management, it has combined Bell helicopters, Homelite chain saws, Talon zippers, Speidel watch bands and dozens of other products into a business that now grosses $2.6 billion a year and is increasing profits at an average of about 10% annually-just about meeting Miller's target...
Frugality is one of the keystones of his personal lifestyle. Though he owns $1.8 million worth of Textron stock and collects $400,000 in annual salary and bonuses, Miller lives in an unpretentious three-bedroom house in Providence's east side and often takes a bus to work. He normally lunches at his desk on crackers and Campbell's soup. About the only luxuries the Millers allow themselves are a regular winter vacation in the Bahamas, a summer place near Cape Cod and a weekly seat at New York's Metropolitan Opera...
That same frugality has kept Textron remarkably free of borrowing. At the beginning of last year, its long-term debt totaled only $227 million, minuscule for a company of Textron's size, and especially for a conglomerate. Some of Miller's ideas for managing the economy are equally conservative. For example, he believes that the Government should increase capital investment by giving business higher depreciation allowances and increased investment tax credits...
...that, Miller is nonetheless a registered Democrat, was an early supporter of the Humphrey-Muskie ticket in 1968 and has long been a friend and admirer of Vice President Walter Mondale. He has expressed sympathy for the unemployed by his actions as well as his words: he is a director of both the National Alliance of Businessmen, a group that tries to encourage hiring of the hard-core unemployed, and of a special business committee formed last summer to promote the training and hiring of Viet Nam veterans. In a speech to Pittsburgh businessmen last January, he not only advocated...