G. William Miller - Investment Advice from the Treasury Secretary

Legal Tender for All Debts

My favorite mentor is Mike Cardozo, a super gentleman, successful and principled by anyone's standards, who took an interest in me when I was a fun-loving and apparently undisciplined youth in the early 1980's.  We were colleagues for a while at CTM, Mike's stopover between serving as White House counsel on telecommunications to Jimmy Carter, and a long career as a merchant banker.

Cardozo: Prime Mover.  Porter: Disciple.

In the mid 1980's, Mike associated with his Carter administration buddy, 65th Treasury Secretary G. William Miller, and David Rubinstein's wife Alice Rogoff, in the formation of GWM & Associates.  When I was sorely in need of professional advice, I'd pop over to GWM and Mike would take me to the Palm, to impart brutal wisdom (such as "What you need is Officer's Candidate School, Porter!  A little discipline would do you good!").

Gee - The Real William Miller

I got to meet the Secretary several times and, when he was out, used his office on a few occasions to make calls while Mike wound up his pre-lunch meetings.  Miller was debonair, and kind enough to make small talk with me and toss funny ideas around such as those pitched by entrepreneurs who had ideas on re-fitting an extrusion facility in Cleveland, or wanted GWM to bankroll the growing of hydroponic Belgian endive in the US, or the character who was going to teach the Chinese to eat cheese.

The punchline to this story is that, although I toiled in the TV and new media vineyards for several years, I eventually found myself handling finance and investment clients, including a series of engagements for the World Bank and International Finance Corporation (during the James Wolfensohn era).  On one of these projects in 2004, my client called me and my team in for a presentation to the CEO.  My two associates on the project (a major real estate developer and a marketer) were both named "Bill Miller" - but neither one was the Bill Miller of Carter heyday.  Bizarre....  There were chortles and bon mots around the executive table, which I relayed to Mike, and he to GWM.

Secretary Miller passed away in 2006.  Some say he had the strong hand as Fed Chairman in the onset of '70's stagflation in the US economy.  More successful was his subsequent Treasury role in the Chrysler bailout.  No matter - In our paths-crossings, he was solicitous beyond anything that was called for, and had real class.