Longtime Penn Hills school board member, advice writer
Robert I. “Bob” Miller wasn’t a native son of Penn Hills, but few did more to promote and serve the community in the eastern suburbs.
“He really embraced Pittsburgh when he moved here, and one of the ways he expressed his love for the area was serving on the school board,” said his daughter Drue Miller, of Forest Hills. “He was really, really dedicated to public service.”
Mr. Miller served 26 years on the Penn Hills school board, and for years as a director and president of both the Allegheny Intermediate Unit and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
The retired engineer from the Westinghouse Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory was among the team that drafted the Home Rule Charter for Penn Hills in the early 1970s, and he lent his expertise for many years to several state education funding agencies and public service groups.
Mr. Miller, 90, died at his Penn Hills home on Thursday after a series of recent health setbacks.
He was born in Boyertown, Berks County, and graduated from Boyertown
High School in 1947 as class salutatorian.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1952 from Penn State University and later received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War aboard the USS Wrangell, an ammunition supply ship.
First an ensign then promoted to lieutenant, Mr. Miller was the ship’s navigator, among other duties, his daughter said.
“That’s probably the thing he talked about the most,” she said. “He was out there with a sextant looking at the stars, figuring out where they were going.”
Mr. Miller found his way to the Pittsburgh area in 1951, when he married his college sweetheart Nancy Anderson, a Wilkinsburg native.
Just days before he died, Mr. Miller spent his 68th anniversary with his wife.
“They got to hold hands for one last time,” his daughter said. “It was a very special memory — it was very touching.”
Mr. Miller spent his entire engineering career at the Bettis Atomic Lab, where he began working right out of the military in 1955.
By the time he retired in 1991, Mr. Miller held six patents and worked in several management and engineering positions, helping to design and test nuclear reactors for the Navy.
In 1960, he supervised construction of a new family home in Penn Hills and five years later, he ran successfully for a seat on the Penn Hills school board.
“Somebody suggested to him that he run for school board,” his daughter said. “My parents had two kids in the school district by that time, and Dad was also very involved in the local Republican committee.”
Mr. Miller never saw the unpaid position as the thankless job that some others did, and he continued serving on the board until 1991, including as its president.
“Every election day he got out and worked the polls for other candidates,” Ms. Miller recalled. “He was extremely proud of the caliber of people they had on the board.”
Mr. Miller was later elected to the board of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, where he served from 19761986 and in 1982, he was among the founders of the Pennsylvania School District Liquid Asset Fund, an investment program operated by school districts.
In 1991, he served as president of the PSBA and from 1999 to 2012, he was a director and officer at the Pennsylvania School Boards Association Insurance Trust.
“Engineering was his first calling, and education was his second calling,” said Ms. Miller. “He loved getting involved in projects and the community.”
After he retired, Mr. Miller joined the nonprofit Westinghouse Service Uniting Retired Employees, where he volunteered as coordinator of the group’s financial roundtable. He also wrote a monthly column for a membership newsletter from 1997 until he became ill in recent weeks.
“His column was called ‘From the desk of Bob Miller,’” his daughter said. “It was just little tips and tidbits for saving money on taxes and things.”
“He was a faithful contributor,” said newsletter editor Allan Kuenzel, of Monroeville. “He provided a lot of insight and encouragement.”
Among the speakers Mr. Miller lined up for monthly meetings of the roundtable was financial adviser, CPA and lawyer Jim Lange of the Lange Financial Group.
“Bob genuinely wanted to truly help people. He was always trying to get the best speakers,” recalled Mr. Lange, who addressed the group annually for the past 17 years at Mr. Miller’s invitation. “He was a good man.”
In 2013, Mr. Miller’s efforts were recognized with the The Charlie Ruch Lifetime Achievement Award from the SURE organization.
“He was always looking out for other people and offering to help,” including the times her father meticulously organized the neighborhood flea market in Frankstown Estates — including hand-drawn maps — or when he drove neighbors to doctor’s appointments, Ms. Miller said. “He did things like that all the time. He was generous and selfless.”
But it’s the weekly dinner outings with her dad that Ms. Miller will miss most of all.
“He loved Eat’n Park, and for years, every Friday night, he and I had a standing date, because it was clam chowder night — except during Lent, when we went to a fish fry,” she said, laughing at the memory. “It was our happy place.”
Along with his wife and daughter, Mr. Miller is survived by his sons Jeffrey, of Arlington, Va., and Craig, of Penn Hills, and his sister Betty Miller Sabo, of Boyertown.
Friends will be received at Wolfe Memorial Forest Hills Chapel, 3604 Greensburg Pike, Pittsburgh Pa. 15221, on Thursday from 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. and also Friday from 10 a.m. until the time of the funeral service at 11 a.m. Private interment in Woodlawn Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, send gifts in Mr. Miller’s memory to Westinghouse SURE, 641 Braddock Ave., East Pittsburgh, Pa. 15112, or www.westinghousesure.org.