If you want someone to do a good job for you in the present and future, you need someone who has done well in the past. Biography: Larry R. Miller Born in Los Angeles, California 1940. Moved to Riverside, California, 1948 Moved to Robbins, California (Northern California, 1955. Graduated from Sutter Union High, Sutter California, 1958. Joined the US Marines June, 1958. Released from US Marines with an honorable discharge, 1960. Worked briefly for Johnson Tractor Co. in Riverside before moving back to N. California. Worked as a welder and truck driver for chemical fertilizer company, Pacific Guano, in Robbins, California for approximately six months. Went to work for Marysville Tractor and Equipment, the area Caterpillar dealer, as a welder and apprentice field mechanic. Sent to welding school, mechanics school, parts management schools, store management schools and graduated from service section to parts to satellite store manager in 1963. When Marysville Tractor bought out Weaver Tractor Co., another Caterpillar dealer, they changed their name to Tenco Tractor and wanted Larry to move to Sacramento, CA. and go into sales. Larry didn’t want to live in Sacramento and after giving eight months notice, moved to Eugene, OR where he went to work for Fisher Implement Co. a John Deere dealer. The job wasn’t what it had been reported to be and after one month Larry went to work for Timber Tractor Co. the area Allis-Chalmers dealer as assistant parts manager. Larry was contacted by Ross Equipment, the World’s Largest Loraine Crane dealer, and offered the position of general parts manager and purchasing agent. In early 1967, Larry was offered the distributorship for a line of automotive filters, parts and supplies. In late 1967 Larry quit Ross Equipment and went into business for himself. Larry and his first wife bought a corner “Mom and Pop” grocery store during the same time period. In 1968 Larry expanded his business and also purchased a gas station. Larry began driving racecars professionally in 1968. He was the high points driving champion in SCCA Northwest Region in 1969. He was also Formula Ford champion, B Sedan champion and B Sports Racing champion at various times. He drove formula A and his next step was Indy cars. The glow faded with racecars so Larry began racing sailboats and teaching sailing. The Millers had sold the grocery store and moved the automotive business into two large buildings in NW Eugene in early 1970. In 1972, MTR Enterprises, Larry’s automotive business, had grown to be the largest, independent (non-dealer) Import parts and service facility in the state of Oregon. The business remained number 1 until it’s sale in 1979. With the sale of the business the Millers went sailing, first to Mexico and then to Hawaii. An opportunity in Hawaii presented itself in 1981 and Larry went back into business importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. Larry and his first wife divorced in 1984. Larry was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking at age 44 and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. A sponsored athlete in his forties, Larry finished first in nine marathons in a row in his division and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Larry attributes much of his athletic success to T'ai Chi, which he began studying in the early 1980s. In 1990, Larry developed his own ultra short form of Tai Chi which he uses, and teaches, to this day. Larry married Celinda Crawford-Mock in 1988 after a three year engagement. Together they sold their businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. The boat was sold and the Millers moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. They had taken on the caregiver duties for Larry’s mother in 1989 and continued to caregive until his mother's death in 1999. In 2000, after engineering and building their strawbale house in Columbus, NM, Larry took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. Larry had been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure novel. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking and fishing at various times in the White Mountains of Arizona with his youngest son Jeff who had moved with his family to the Sedona area. 2002 the Millers spent the summer at a world class resort where they taught health, wellness, T'ai Chi, Yoga and fly fishing. They also learned the hospitality business at the resort and did promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the six months stay at the resort in 2002. The Millers had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 Larry did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. In 2005, Larry returned to the resort where the Millers had spent 2002 at the request of the owner. Larry was supposed to be there for the month of June. He’d contacted people he’d met in 2002 and they came back to fish, hike and spend time while Larry was there. Larry’s one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who had returned to the resort in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who Larry had met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM. They fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. Donal had never camped out in the "wilds" before and it was quite an experience for him. Larry had begun writing a weekly column for the Deming Headlight newspaper in 1995 and his articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. Larry has done public speaking, plus photo and video presentations, on various subjects for libraries, civic and private organizations. Larry videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute's travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a by invitation only conference which Larry attended. While attending the conference, Larry realized that film making wasn’t what he wanted to do but he wanted to use his sixteen years of experience and enjoyment for videoing and photography. He was asked to submit a proposal to the Deming Public Schools on teaching video, editing and other basic film making skills. The proposal was accepted but the district ran out of funds. During the winter of 2005, it was discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 Larry trained for the run and the run was completed in October. There was no night running. The overall accumulated time was 29 hours and 32 minutes. During late 2005 and through 2006 Larry built and maintained web sites and wrote web copy for friends who needed help promoting their businesses. In 2008, Larry and Celinda volunteered on organic farms in California and Oregon under the WWOOF/USA program. In 2008, Larry had over one million reads on the Internet that could be tracked, plus more that couldn't. With skills and the endeavors of the past 40+ years, Larry is looking forward to the future. The combination of learning new things plus the skills acquired in the past can help other people with their business ventures. In 2009, Larry and Celinda have been working with Oregon small town chambers of commerce doing article marketing and promotion. Larry can be contacted through this website.