By James R. Hagerty
As president of Ford Motor Co. in the 1960s, Arjay Miller
concluded that business leaders could no longer consider pollution,
urban riots and other social issues as someone else's problem. He
took that agenda to Stanford University's Graduate School of
Business, where he served as dean in the 1970s. He put an emphasis
on teaching corporate social responsibility and skills applicable
to both business and public policy.
Raised on a Nebraska farm with no indoor plumbing, Mr. Miller
was an economist and one of the 10 "whiz kids" hired as executives
by Ford in 1946 after serving together in a statistical branch of
the Army Air Forces.
A director of companies including Wells Fargo & Co., Levi
Strauss & Co. and Washington Post Co., he was exceptionally
well-connected. Henry Ford II in 1986 stipulated that, if he was
ever kidnapped, Mr. Miller should be in charge of negotiating with
his captors. Warren Buffett played his ukulele at Mr. Miller's
100th birthday party.
Mr. Miller died Nov. 3 in Woodside, Calif. He was 101.
Ralph Nader's crusade for safer cars and the Detroit riots of
1967 jolted Mr. Miller into rethinking his approach to business. He
saw Mr. Nader's indictment of flimsy automobiles as a justified
slap in the industry's face. Auto executives, summoned to Congress
to testify about deathtrap cars, were unprepared, he believed, and
that led to regulations shaped by government officials with little
understanding of the industry.
The riots galvanized business leaders in Detroit, where Mr.
Miller became chairman of an economic development committee. "Our
primary task was to get jobs for the unemployed in the city," he
said in an oral history recorded at Stanford in 2003. "We failed
miserably."
At Stanford, he created a public management program aimed at
encouraging more students to consider working in government or at
nonprofits. Another aim was to teach business students to deal
effectively with public officials.
Rawley John Miller Jr., the youngest of eight siblings, was born
March 4, 1916, in Shelby, Neb. A sister dubbed him Arjay.
Harvesting corn, milking cows and other chores inspired him to seek
an easier way of life. Teaching struck him as his best bet.
While he was studying at the University of California, Los
Angeles, a young woman named Frances Fearing gave him a B on a test
in labor economics. When he complained, she refused to change his
grade but "agreed to go out with me. So we got married," he
recalled in a 2008 interview.
After graduating from UCLA in 1937, he entered a doctoral
program in economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Before he could finish a dissertation, he was assigned to work with
other scholars in the Pentagon, compiling data to help ensure
weapons and parts were available where most needed.
He and nine others from that military brain trust -- including
Robert McNamara, later U.S. Secretary of Defense -- wanted to stay
together after the war. "We thought we could sell ourselves as a
package as management experts to industry," Mr. Miller said. Henry
Ford II "looked at us and said, 'I want to hire all 10 of you. Just
put down your names, how much money you want, and when you can come
to work.'"
Mr. Miller helped straighten out Ford's chaotic financial
reporting in the late 1940s and spent 23 years at Ford, including
five as president. He had two secretaries, two chauffeurs and
access to a fleet of corporate aircraft. Still, his power was
limited. "Henry was the boss," Mr. Miller once said, according to
"The Whiz Kids," a 1993 book by John A. Byrne. "Even though he
said, 'You're the boss, Arjay, you make the decision,' Henry didn't
mean it."
In 1968, Mr. Ford abruptly replaced him with Semon "Bunkie"
Knudsen, poached from General Motors Corp. Mr. Miller was kicked
upstairs as a vice chairman. He later said he had "had a fill" of
corporate life and welcomed Stanford's offer.
As a dean, he tapped his many business pals for donations to
Stanford. "I was on the board of Utah International (a mining
company), and I got five endowed chairs out of that board," he told
Stanford interviewers.
His wit was quick. A colleague who needed 10 stitches on his
forehead after a household mishap joked that doctors had removed
his brain. "Why did they need such a big hole?" Mr. Miller shot
back.
He urged business leaders to apply "the TV test: Don't ever do
anything you wouldn't be willing to explain on TV (to) a national
audience or see in the newspapers."
Mr. Miller is survived by two children, three granddaughters and
six great grandchildren. His wife of 70 years, Frances, died in
2010.
Global warming was "the biggest disaster coming down the pike at
us," Mr. Miller warned in 2008. Even so, he said, "you have to be
an optimist in this world. There's reason not to be, but never give
up."
--Nicole Friedman contributed to this article.
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 10, 2017 10:44 ET (15:44 GMT)
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