Jay native leading university

He’s a favorite son few in the community know.
Astrophysicist, NASA research scientist, and now a university president, he’s built a career any community would love to brag about.
Meet Dr. George E. Miller III, the new president of Martin University.
Born in Portland — “Jay County Hospital!” said Miller with a grin — and with deep roots in Dunkirk, he has returned to the Hoosier state to lead a still-young academic institution in the heart of Indianapolis.
“According to the way it’s been told to me, all my cousins were born at Jay County Hospital,” Miller, 62, said in an interview this week at the Martin University campus.
His grandmother, Edna Jones, lived on the east side of Dunkirk, not far from what was then the Armstrong Cork glass factory and is today Verallia.
It was a family tradition for young expectant mothers to return to Grandmother Jones’s house so she could help look after them before and after the birth of their babies.
That was the case when George Miller’s mother, Esther Miller, came down to Dunkirk from Chicago before he was born.
And for young George, Dunkirk would be home until he was about 10 years old. “I went to elementary school in Dunkirk, then we moved to New York City,” said Miller.
While his mother established a career in New York, George stayed with his grandmother.
And even after the move to the city, he would return regularly — every summer until he graduated from high school and every other summer through college — to visit his grandmother in Dunkirk.
His mother would go on to a successful career with the Macy’s Department Store chain, serving as an assistant vice president in its credit division when she retired.
And George would go on to a successful career as well.
He received his undergraduate degree from Delaware State University in 1970, then received his master’s of science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, doing research that involved liquid crystals.
“If I’d stayed with that, I’d probably be a millionaire now,” he laughed, noting that the research he was involved in laid the foundation for today’s flat-screen TVs.
Instead, he followed his graduate adviser to Howard University where he continued his studies and received his PhD in physical chemistry in 1978.
“Then I go to NASA,” he said. He would stay there for almost five years, working as an astrophysicist in the planetary atmosphere division of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
“It was all really secret Star Wars stuff,” he said, involving the use of high-energy lasers for ozone detection.
An academic career followed, with professorships at Jackson State University, Norfolk State University, and Howard University and administrative positions at several other instutions.
Honors followed as well. Miller received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Delaware State University and received the Giants in Science award from Quality Education for Minorities.
He’s been married for more than 30 years to the former Ingrid Watson of Washington, D.C. They have two sons.
Prior to taking the reins at Martin, he was serving as vice president for academic affairs and presidential professor of chemistry at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C. He’s also president and CEO of Organic Bio-Energy Inc.
The return to Indiana came earlier this year when he was selected to be the third president in Martin University’s history.
Martin, founded in 1977, has an enrollment of about 1,100 students. The new president would like to see that grow to 4,000.
“We face the challenges all small, private schools face,” he said. “That means watching how we spend our money. … We have to be very astute, very strategic about how we plan and how we grow.”
But though he was out of Indiana for most of his career, he never forgot his Hoosier roots.
His grandmother died in 1975, and his grandfather, Sherman Jones, passed away in 1976.
“I remember all the apple trees and the chickens,” he said. “At the time, you think things are so big. … Grandma has a 1952-53 Buick Roadmaster. That car seemed so huge.”
He remembers trips as a child to Portland with his grandmother. “Portland was the center of everything,” he recalled. The Marsh store and the Western Auto store where he got his first basketball are among the childhood memories.
And young George is fondly remembered by those who shared childhood with him.
“He was the orneriest kid you ever met,” said Dunkirk businessman Gary Glogas. “He was my buddy. I’m tickled he’s back in Indiana.”[[In-content Ad]]