Larry H. Miller

Larry H. Miller (April 26, 1944 – February 20, 2009) was an American businessman. He owned the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Utah Jazz and the Salt Lake Bees, a minor league baseball team. Miller and his companies (LHM Group) also owned more than 60 automotive dealerships throughout the western United States, and a variety of other ventures, including Prestige Financial Services, Jordan Commons (a restaurant and entertainment complex), Megaplex Theatres, KJZZ-TV, Miller Motorsports Park, the advertising agency Saxton Horne, and Vivint Arena. The Fanzz chain of sports apparel stores was also owned by LHM Group until its sale to Ames Watson Capital in 2018.

Family and early life

Miller was born as Lawrence Horne West to Mary Lorille Horne and Howard Hanley West. His parents divorced in 1946 and in June 1948 his mother married Frank Soren Miller. Larry was legally adopted by his stepfather in September 1949 and his last name was changed to Miller. Miller did not meet his biological father again until he was middle-aged.

Miller earned poor grades in school but was also a National Merit Scholar. He only spent a few weeks in college. Miller graduated from West High School. He spent six weeks attending college.

Miller was employed in construction by his uncle, Reid Horne, on-and-off until 1964, when he and all the workers were laid off due to lack of business. That same year he spent the summer working for Aarons Coverall and Towel Service as a truck driver. Later in 1964, he went to work for American Auto Parts. He started at $1.10 per hour and worked stocking shelves, making deliveries, and doing cleaning.

After leaving American Auto Parts, Miller found a job through a newspaper ad at a car dealership, Bountiful Motors, working in the parts department. He started at $300 for the first month with a promise of a raise to $350 for further months. After Bountiful Motors failed to honor its promise, Miller accepted a chance job offer from a customer. His new employer was Paint and Piston, a body shop, where he earned $425 per month. He worked there for a year, but then moved to Gresh and Jerry's Chevron gas station where he earned $450 doing mechanical work, pumping gas, and managing the parts inventory. In part due to the gas station's failure to honor its agreement with respect to working hours, Miller moved on to Peck and Shaw GMC-Toyota, a car dealer. The dealership wanted to establish separate parts departments for GMC and Toyota, with Miller choosing to lead the Toyota department.

Miller moved on to work for Main Motors, a dealer of snowmobiles, motorcycles, trucks, and trailers as manager of the parts department. He was initially paid $650 per month and promised additional pay equal to 10% of his department's profits. Even after turning the department around and coming across a financial statement proving that it was profitable, his employer refused to honor their agreement. The overall business was doing poorly and staff cuts were made, creating a great deal of stress. Miller quit immediately after a confrontation over these issues with the owner. Miller reconciled with Main Motors after taking, but not starting, a position at Burt Chevrolet-Toyota in Englewood, Colorado.

After continued broken promises, Miller left Main Motors for good in 1970 and went to work with Burt as their Toyota parts manager. After further conflict over compensation and other issues Miller left after giving two-weeks notice. Mistreatment by his employers made Miller realize that treating workers well could be a key competitive advantage.

Miller had a much more positive experience at Chuck Stevinson Toyota in Lakewood, Colorado. In 1971, he was hired to turnaround their parts department. By his second year on the job, it had the highest parts sales of any Toyota dealership in the United States. Miller achieved this by building a national wholesale business instead of just focusing on the local market. Miller took advantage of the demand for locking gas caps during the energy crisis by buying the entire wholesale stock of such caps, which were only made by two companies. In 1973, Gene Osborne, part owner of the dealership, offered Miller a promotion to general manager. This promotion did not take effect until 1974 due to the oil embargo of the same year. In 1977, Miller was appointed the operations manager for all five of Stevinson's Toyota locations. Miller was eventually demoted to head one of the locations in order to make room for Stevinson's sons, with Miller asked to mentor them. Miller's work with Stevinson gave him national recognition among Toyota dealers and repair shops.

Softball and drag racing, two of his interests, helped launch careers in sports and automobiles. From 1963 to 1970, Miller raced cars, and from 1962 to 1985 he was a fast-pitch softball player, pitching in the Salt Lake City and Denver metro leagues.

Miller married his high school girlfriend, Gail Saxton, on March 25, 1965, and they became the parents of five children: Gregory Scott, Roger Lawrence (August 21, 1968 – August 18, 2013), Stephen Frank, Karen Rebecca, and Bryan Joseph. He was the grandfather of twenty one grandchildren.

Religion

Miller was a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). By the age of 22, he had stopped participating in church activities. Miller's wife and son, Greg, eventually began attending services. Miller delayed doing so due to his desire to play softball and attend football games. Miller re-engaged with the church in 1975 by attending a Relief Society dinner in his local congregation and was soon interested in seeking to be ordained an elder in the church's priesthood. While his involvement with the church increased over the next few years, Miller described his feelings at that time as "non-committal". Several years later, Miller's commitment became firm and he was ordained an elder. Miller directed his wife to start tithing based on their gross income in late 1978.

Miller provided initial funding for a team of experts at Brigham Young University (BYU) that examined documents from the early history of the LDS Church. This team later compiled ''The Joseph Smith Papers''. In addition to the books with Smith's papers, the project generated a companion television series. Miller funded this project with a donation of $10 million in bonds and additional cash contributions.

Business interests

Car dealerships

Miller partnered with his uncle, Reid Horne, to purchase Toyota of Murray in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray from Hugh Gardner and his partner for $3.5 million. Miller only had $88,000 and was unable to obtain bank financing. Horne obtained a loan for $200,000. Gardner and his partner accepted three notes for the balance, due in ten years. Miller was deeply concerned about the debt burden of his business. Miller saw that the dealership was under-performing and believed he could turn it around.

Gardner and his partner defrauded Miller by selling off inventory at-cost to their friends before transferring ownership. Miller and Horne had anticipated this and arranged for a shipment of new inventory from Toyota in advance and stored them off-site until closing. The dealership re-opened on May 1, 1979, as Larry H. Miller Toyota. They sold 172 cars their first month in business. The location had only averaged 30 cars per month previously.

Four months after acquiring his first location, Miller got a phone call from Erwin Ashenfelter about buying a distressed dealership in Spokane, Washington. Miller conducted difficult negotiations with banks in Washington to loan him the necessary money. He also had difficulty getting inventory for the new dealership as it had no dealer code and no flooring line. Miller offered to pay cash and had the cars ultimately bound for Spokane shipped to Murray. Miller quickly bought another distressed dealership in Moscow, Idaho. In late 1980, Miller purchased another location in Phoenix, Arizona.

The first years in business were difficult for Miller. He often teetered on the edge of failure. His uncle ran into financial difficulties that Miller considered a threat to the dealership. In October 1981, Miller bought out his uncle's share in the business. Miller paid for this by borrowing $700,000. The dealerships rebounded strongly in 1983 and 1984.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Miller acquired a number of automobile dealerships in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, creating the Larry H. Miller Automotive Group. In 2007, Selling Power listed him as the tenth-largest U.S. automotive dealer, with 42 dealerships and sales of $13.5 million. Miller placed a strong emphasis on vertical integration to help his car business. For example, he started an advertising agency, a printing shop, and an insurance company. By the 1990s, Miller's reputation made financing new business ventures much easier.

Television

After a failed attempt to start a television outlet on the last remaining VHF frequency in the Utah market, Miller purchased Salt Lake City independent station KXIV in February 1993. He later changed the call letters to KJZZ-TV as a reference to the Utah Jazz.

From 1995 to 2001, KJZZ-TV was a charter UPN affiliate. In October 2000, Miller demanded the right to breach his contract with the network if it increased its "urban/ethnic programming" to more than two hours per week, due to lack of minorities within the Salt Lake Metropolitan.

Restaurant

In July 2000, Miller was sued by Casa Bonita, a Lakewood, Colorado restaurant, for violation of intellectual property rights and unfair competition