Who: Dean of the School of Business at Clayton State University; former CEO of Arvida Company, a Florida-based real estate company.

Hometown: Lynn, Mass., where “there were no vacations—you just waited until the layoffs came,” he told the Atlanta Constitution.

Current Residence: Morrow, Georgia

Spotlight: Miller challenges all your worst stereotypes of corporate executives: he not only made himself redundant at Arvida but also left the lucrative business world to guide a small state college in Georgia. When he took the helm of Arvida as president and CEO in 1989, the company was recovering from an abusive three-year relationship with Disney and much of its talented top management had departed. With a loss of $44 million in 1992, Miller decided it was time to reorganize and pare down the company. The strategy worked: a sleeker, lighter Arvida reported profits of $50 million in 1994. Along the way, he was humble enough to realize he was unnecessary and in a final move, eliminated himself. Though equally successful in his “re-engineering” of Clayton State University’s business school, this time Miller has no intention of leaving. As dean, he helped the school earn the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’s prestigious accreditation—“the gold standard of management education” held by less than one-third of business schools in America.

In his own words: “Organizations can be successful with good plans, but they need to be specific. I’m very much into specific plans.” – to the Atlanta Business Chronicle

The businessman-dean: Clayton didn’t want an academic to run its school; they were looking for a real-world pragmatic, and Miller fit their bill perfectly. He established separate tracks in each field, expanded the faculty, and added new courses in managerial communication, global business, and corporate social responsibility.

Free time: When he left Arvida to “the people closest to the customer,” Miller said he intended to improve his golf and travel with his wife, Mary.

Living Dangerously: Miller is a big Yankees fan. From Boston. He may never be allowed to return.