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Story and photos by Bill Schaefer
It was in 1973 that Terry Miller decided to forego a career in agricultural research and return to Idaho and help his father, Percy Chester Miller, manage the family farm.
Miller had been working for the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, Ohio, as a research scientist and instructor, specializing in vegetable pathology, when his father, following a heart attack, asked if he would be interested in coming home to help run the 320-acre farm in Minidoka County, east of Rupert, Idaho.
In a recent interview, Miller recalled that his peers at the Ohio research station couldn’t understand why he would give up a tenured research position to return to sweat and toil on the family farm back in remote Idaho.
“‘You are going to give up the prestige of being here and a professor and go farm?’ They couldn’t quite fathom that,” he said of the Ohio researchers. “But, as it turns out, they were wrong and I was right.”
It’s a decision that he’s never regretted and one that would result in the beginnings of Miller Research in 1975, now celebrating its 50-year anniversary.
Today, Terry’s son, Jeff, oversees Miller Research as the president, CEO and principal field investigator, and Terry, after a failed attempt at retirement, continues to assist part-time as a senior research scientist.
Returning to the family farm in 1974, Terry and his father started a consulting company advising local farmers on fertility, irrigation, taking soil and petiole samples and what to spray for specific crop diseases.
“So we started a consulting company, and then eventually one of the professors from Berkeley (where Terry had done some post-doctoral work) brought a study for us to do on potatoes. There were several of them there who were working on potato diseases,” Terry said. “Eventually, we quit consulting, and as the word went out that we were doing research, then some of the companies started coming, and it just kept growing and growing.”
Terry and his father continued to farm, concentrating on potatoes, sugar beets and some grains, all while adding more acres to the farming operation. Meanwhile, the nascent Miller Research’s reputation continued expanding within Idaho’s agricultural community, extending into the Pacific Northwest while at the same time developing relationships with agrichemical companies such as Simplot, Bayer and Syngenta.
“It was a long process because getting clients was a little slow, so the farming carried the research,” he said.
Terry kept farming until 2002 when he decided that Miller Research could stand on its own.
“It just kept growing and growing,” Terry said of the research business side. “Finally we quit farming, but the farming was the tool that allowed us to survive while we built up Miller Research.”
Father’s Footsteps
Miller Research continues providing agricultural research for universities and private agrichemical companies throughout Idaho and the Pacific Northwest under the direction of Jeff Miller.
The careers of both Terry and Jeff followed very similar trajectories.
Terry Miller earned a bachelor’s degree in botany and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in plant pathology at Utah State University. He followed that with post-doctoral study at the University of California-Berkeley and then accepted a tenure-track position with Ohio State University.
Jeff Miller basically grew up under the shadow of Miller Research. Jeff was 5 years old when Terry and Percy started Miller Research in 1975.
Jeff earned his bachelor’s degree in botany-biotechnology from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in plant pathology at Washington State University. Then, just like his father, Jeff worked in academics and in research and Extension programs, first as a plant pathologist at the University of Minnesota and then at the University of Idaho’s Aberdeen Research and Extension Center. And then in 2007, he gave up a tenure-track position with the University of Idaho to return to Miller Research and work with his father with the eventual plan for Terry to retire and Jeff to run the business.
Jeff took the helm at Miller Research when Terry attempted to retire in 2015. However, Terry found time spent in retirement unfulfilling and returned to Miller Research working four days a week helping out wherever they need an extra hand.
Jeff said that Miller Research currently conducts about 70 field trials annually. He estimates that 15 to 20 percent are academic trials for university researchers with the remaining trials conducted for ag-chemical companies.
As a for-hire private research company, the importance of its reputation among growers for unbiased data is paramount.
“You got to protect your name,” Jeff said. “I think that’s our greatest asset, is the reputation of being unbiased. You know, if we lost that, then people don’t need us. The bigger ag-chem companies, the Syngenta and Bayer, BASF and Corteva, they really want to know. The really want to know. They never put pressure to get a certain result.”
He attributes the long-term success of Miller Research to his father’s emphasis on data-driven results.
“One thing my father drilled into me through the years is you must be unbiased when you collect the data. You cannot shade it at all based on the fact that you’re getting paid by a certain sponsor,” he said.
“I feel we have to be a little bit extra careful,” Jeff said. “We can’t make it look like we are in the back pocket of a certain company who funds a lot of our research, and through the years the growers have, I think, they’ve appreciated that about my father.”
During the past 50 years, Terry Miller has witnessed many changes in the landscape of agriculture.
“Everything has gotten bigger. Farms have gotten bigger, equipment has gotten bigger,” he said. “We used to be happy if we could get 200, 300, hundred weight per acre on potatoes; now that’s almost a crop failure. So the production has gone up. The knowledge of how to farm has gone up, as far as fertility and irrigation. All those things have evolved into more of a science than it was before, and that’s because people are doing research all over the country on how to make things better.”
Plans in Place
With a succession plan tentatively in place, the future looks promising for Miller Research. Jeff’s son, Tim, is currently working on his Ph.D. in nematology at Louisiana State University, and Jeff said that Tim is planning on returning to work in the family business.
Currently, Miller Research is a six-person operation, with Jeff as president, CEO and principal field investigator; Terry, founder and senior research scientist; Scott Anderson, farm manager and research design specialist; Trent Taysom, agronomist and research trial manager; Cheryn Clayton Suarez, research coordinator; and Jeff’s wife, Shaura, is the bookkeeper.
On Aug. 20, Miller Research will host its annual potato pest management field day beginning at 10 a.m. Following the tour will be lunch and cake to celebrate the company’s 50-year anniversary. Cost is $20. For more information or to RSVP, visit www.millerresearch.com or call (208) 312-4650.