Rooted in Relationships: BTU General Manager Gary Miller Reflects on a 42-Year Career
If you asked most people to summarize the lessons learned or experiences gained over the course of multiple decades, they might be at a loss for words.
For Gary Miller, who has served BTU in various capacities since 2005 and as the general manager of the utility since 2012, everything he has learned to prioritize over the course of a career that has spanned over four decades can be summed up in one word: relationships.
“Relationships are the biggest thing,” Miller said as he pointed out two large binders in his office that contain every business card he has collected over the course of his career. “I can see or hear from somebody that I haven’t seen or dealt with since 1985, and we’re still friends. If you’re really good at building those relationships and are fair and honest with people, things generally will go the right way.”
That mantra was instilled early in Miller’s career, and has been an important pillar every step of the way.
Growing up in Bridge City, a refinery town near the Louisiana border where the Neches and Sabine rivers meet, Miller knew from a young age that math was his strong suit. He attended nearby Lamar University in Beaumont to study electrical engineering, and through a scholarship and co-op program offered by Gulf State Utilities (now Entergy), got his first opportunity to experience what a career in power might entail.
After graduating from Lamar, Miller’s first fulltime job was with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) where he became the first-ever engineer hired at the South Texas Security Center – a precursor to ERCOT and one of two security centers established after a 1983 winter storm showed the need for better coordination amongst utilities. Miller’s primary functions included creating models that could predict what would happen to the grid if certain key pieces of infrastructure went offline. But, perhaps more importantly, it gave him the first taste of how important the relationships he now cherishes would be.
“Every utility was basically an island amongst themselves,” Miller said. “My job was to talk to everybody and all these other utilities because we had to work together. And I knew so many people just because that was my job – to make sure to talk to them and make sure we were doing what they needed us to do and that they were giving us the information we needed.”
After spending five years at LCRA, Miller embarked on a career that would be difficult to match in terms of the wide breadth of experience. The next fifteen years included directly working with ERCOT, serving at multiple electric co-ops in operations and power supply roles, trying his hand on the trading floor of a power marketer following deregulation in 1996, and managing energy accounting and system dispatch for major corporations.
Twenty years into his career, many of which included a long commute into downtown Dallas, Miller was still looking for somewhere that felt like home. He found it in 2005, when he was hired as manager of BTU’s Qualified Scheduling Entity (QSE) division.
“One of the things I realized after working for investor-owned utilities and working for public power entities is that it was just different,” Miller said. “I was much more comfortable within [public power] entities, and I think that’s the biggest thing that led me towards coming back to one.”
Not long after he arrived in Bryan, Miller was promoted to the role of group manager of QSE and generation. In 2012, he was appointed as the interim general manager, and in February of 2013, the interim label was removed. In total, Miller has spent 21 years serving the citizens of the Brazos Valley, exactly half of his 42-year career.
Each new role at BTU has presented challenges, but Miller’s commitment to strong relationships has helped him rise to the occasion time and time again. When decisions about rates, winter storm responses, day-to-day operations, and everything in between have weighed heavy, his empathy for all stakeholders and security in the process of growing as a leader have remained solid guiding forces.
“The biggest challenge was going from concentrating on a small group of employees to having to think about how every decision affected everybody,” Miller said. “But that is just part of any growth. There are challenges, and you deal with them and move through it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, but you learn from your mistakes and you go on.”
As he enters the next season of his life in retirement, Miller is excited to spend more time with his two grandkids and experiencing true Americana in the form of national parks, driving Route 66, and taking in the Little League World Series. His time at BTU will be remembered fondly by those that worked under him, as his commitment to relationships was made evident by the fact that he could greet almost, if not every, employee by name.
As leadership at BTU transitions to a new era, Miller recognizes that changes in the industry will pose challenges, just as there were changes and challenges to be overcome throughout his career. His charge to future leaders at BTU and throughout the industry is to embrace what comes as an opportunity for personal and professional growth.
“I don’t think that I could have picked a better path for me personally,” Miller said. “I have enjoyed all 42 years in this business and have made a ton of friends along the way that I hope I can stay in touch with. [My advice is to] be nice to people, give them the freedom and authority to do their job, and always, always focus on our mission of reasonable rates, great reliability, and great customer service. If that’s always your goal, then things should most of the time work out in your favor.”