The Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics at the BYU Marriott School of Business presented Derek Miller with the MPA Alumnus of the Year Award to recognize his extraordinary service and leadership in the public and nonprofit sector. In accepting the award, Miller shared how gospel principles have guided his views of leadership.
After he completed his undergraduate degree at BYU, Miller was preparing to move to Oregon for a PhD program when a ward member shared his experience as an MPA student. That was the first time Miller had heard of an MPA, and he said he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He decided to listen to what he believes was the Spirit and change his course to pursue an MPA at BYU Marriott.
“The main reason why I loved the MPA program was because it was here at BYU, so I got to learn about servant leadership according to the perfect model—the Savior Himself,” Miller said in his speech. In addition to an MPA, Miller concurrently earned a JD and has since used his BYU education in his work in government at both state and federal levels.
Miller served as legal counsel for a congressional committee in the US House of Representatives, where his relationships with other legal representatives were sometimes strained. “I was expected to go toe-to-toe with other lawyers in negotiating important policies and potential laws that would have significant impacts on peoples’ lives and livelihoods,” he said. But Miller said he found guidance in reading verses from the Doctrine and Covenants that he had taped to his mirror.
“Leadership should be exercised upon the principles of persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness and meekness, by love unfeigned, by kindness, and charity toward all,” Miller told the audience, referencing Doctrine and Covenants 121:41–44. As he aimed to apply the scriptural exhortations in his work as legal counsel, he said he learned that loving people as Christ taught was not about changing others, but about changing himself.
Miller eventually moved back to Utah and worked in the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, then became the chief of staff to then-governor Gary Herbert. He later pivoted to working as CEO of the World Trade Center Utah for four years and is currently the president and CEO of the Utah Chamber.
As his career progressed, Miller said he realized that he was an introvert—especially when it came to networking—and worried that would hold him back in his pursuits. Leaning on the principles in Ether 12:27 of the Book of Mormon, Miller said he reevaluated his introversion, which he had previously viewed as a weakness. “I had a realization that as much as I didn’t like making small talk with strangers, I did like having real human interactions with real human beings—and I realized that was a strength.”
Sharing his experiences with BYU Marriott MPA students and faculty, he reflected, “I am forever grateful for professors I had who blended the secular and the spiritual in everything they taught us—I try to do that each day.”
