William J. Miller Jr.
1922-Dec. 16, 2003
Palo Alto, California

A small lake that has swallowed thousands of errant golf balls is named for William J. (Bill) Miller Jr., who died Dec. 16, 2003, after a four-month illness. He was 81.

The lake, at the llth hole of the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course, commemorates Miller's driving-force contribution a half century ago to creating the course. He chaired a committee to raise nearly $100,000 to help build it (now equivalent to many times that).

But Miller's real mark on Palo Alto history may have come after he retired in September 1985 from his California Avenue insurance brokerage, Miller & Mathewson: more than 450 "Conversation Piece" programs he hosted on Cable Co-op, the former operator of the area's cable-television system, between 1989 and 2000.

Palo Alto attorney Steve Player, Miller's son in law and longtime friend, said he and others "want to make sure we maintain a library of all the tapes he did ... of leaders and people who made this community. I look at the tapes as a kind of oral history," Player said.

His daughter, Nancy Player, said the programs opened a new world of friendships and intellectual challenge for Miller.

"I remember he'd read about people in the paper who sounded interesting, and he would call them up. He really made some incredible friends from those programs. He always secretly wanted to be a journalist, or a sports writer," she said.

Miller received a Lifetimes of Achievement award from Avenidas in 1998, for his early community contributions as well as his post-retirement activities.

He was born in 1922 in a small, working class Ohio River town in Pennsylvania, where his father ran an insurance and real estate brokerage. With the strong backing of his mother, Mary, he became one of only two in his high-school class of 110 to attend college. He attended the small but demanding, 1,000-student Grove City College, just 40 miles away from his home town. In 1998, he still recalled his mother's admonition to always go for the good teachers no matter what they were teaching.

Pearl Harbor briefly interrupted his junior year. He and a friend were admitted to the Naval Air Corps but sent back to school -- he graduated in 1943 with a degree in economics. He spent 19 months at the University of Pennsylvania earning his wings as a combat pilot -- but never saw combat. He was assigned to the Alameda Naval Air Station in January, 1945, where he chauffered officers.

A blind date shortly before V-J Day changed his life -- he met Adele, who resided in San Francisco. Miller was ferried across the bay almost daily on a naval boat to date her. They were married in January, 1946. He joined the Aetna insurance firm in San Francisco, then was offered a partnership in a Palo Alto insurance firm, which he took over after the original partners retired.

The Millers' first child, Bill III, was born in 1947 and Nancy followed in 1951.

In the 1950s, Miller helped revive the Junior Chamber of Commerce (now Jaycees), working with developer and landowner Warren Thoits, who became a close lifetime friend. He was later named "Young Man of the Year" by the Jaycees, and served as the club's president. He also served on the Chamber of Commerce board and was its president in 1961. He was a 50-year-plus member of the Palo Alto Rotary Club, serving as president in 1958-59.

Miller chaired the committee to create the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course and was a leading fundraiser -- it opened in May 1956. He also served on the boards of Neighbors Abroad, the YMCA, the American Red Cross and Stanford University Hospital. After Adele died in 1998, Miller spoke on behalf of the Midpeninsula Hospice Foundation.

He became politically active in the turbulent late 1950s and 1960s on the so-called "establishment" or pro-development side, managing campaigns and fundraising during "slate politics" years. In 2000, Miller commented that he had mellowed over the years and come to appreciate undeveloped areas that emerged from those early battles.

In addition to Bill III and Nancy Player, Miller is survived by a grandchild, Andrew Miller, and two step-grandchildren, Sam and Elizabeth Player.

Tags: business, public service