Chris Miller talks with Mullens area residents
Sep. 12—Chris Miller, of Huntington, wants to be the next governor of West Virginia.
Miller visited Mulllens last Tuesday, talking with area residents at the Rusted Musket about his plans for West Virginia — if he is elected.
The son of U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., and head of the Dutch Miller Auto Group, Miller's more than two dozen businesses employ more than 600 people.
"I'm not a politician, never been a politician," he emphasized. "I'm a businessman."
The state of West Virginia is a business, he told those gathered, and should be operated as a business.
"Our greatest resource — our educated kids, our blue collar kids — is our biggest export," he said. "We have to fix that. We have to stop that."
Miller learned the lesson of hard work when he was 10 1/2 years old. He asked his dad for a pair of Air Jordans with a price tag of $125. If he wanted them, his dad told him, get a job and buy them.
He got a paper route, delivering newspapers for two years — day in, day out, including Christmas and all other holidays, no matter the weather, he said.
He's been working hard ever since.
On the family's bison farm, he worked at erecting barb wire fencing, stacking hay bales, cutting down trees, clearing land, and numerous other jobs.
At Dutch Miller Auto, he began by detailing vehicles and worked his way up through the ranks.
His enterprises also now include insurance, real estate, bison farming, and a data company that indicates a demographic shift — people across the nation are moving from the big cities.
"We are living in the time of the revitalization of small town America.
"West Virginia is on the verge of greatness.
"West Virginia has what everybody wants," Miller emphasized.
"What we need are jobs and commerce."
Miller wants to create those jobs by utilizing the state's abundance of coal, natural gas, its capacity for nuclear energy, and its water to provide "the cheapest power" in the country.
"More water flows through West Virginia than any other state. We own the Ohio River all the way to the Ohio border," he said.
"West Virginia is the ideal place to come. We have the hills, the rivers, the streams," he said, adding those assets need to be promoted.
"It would be the absolute honor of my life to be your governor," he said. "We can make it better — it's just going to take hard work."
