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Del Miller: Time on his hands

Del Miller has been an important Vancouver entrepreneur and a pioneering watchmaker; now he's ready for retirement
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Longtime entrepreneur Del Miller plans to devote himself to painting and travelling after a life of inventing and deal-making

It was 1959, and Elvis Presley's hips still gripped America, even as advancements in electronics would soon change the way people consumed music. Sony (Nasdaq:SNE), the Japanese electronics giant and purveyor of the Walkman, was officially one year old. Del Miller, a Vancouver inventor and businessman, was 22, selling watches in his family's store, Miller's Jewelers.  

The store at 655 Granville Street was brand new, 30 metres wide and 40 metres deep, with a large pillar in the centre and a mezzanine above. It was the family's third store.

“It was a very big, beautiful store,” recalled Miller, on a rainy Vancouver day in a café overlooking Coal Harbour, where he lives. For a 78-year-old who has led a busy entrepreneurial life, he doesn't seem the least bit tired.

The Miller family started their business in the 1930s, and a young Del Miller began by sweeping floors in his father's shop, eventually moving up to selling merchandise.

But he didn't like selling diamonds or jewelry: “I liked selling watches.”

Miller was fascinated by timepieces and had a desire to tinker, but had dropped out of the University of British Columbia's (UBC) engineering program three years earlier to focus on the business. Looking for an outlet to build things, Miller got to know a pinball distributor. One day, Miller got a call asking if he'd be interested in 25 working pinball machines.

“I said yes,” Miller said. “We had a big house and I said, ‘Just bring them to my house.'”

While Miller and his father both enjoyed playing with the machines, their true value was in the complex parts that were inside them – parts that allowed Miller to tinker, and eventually to come up with an idea that would lead him to break out of the family business and start his own enterprise.

Del the inventor

In 1962, Miller's parents wanted something for the large central pillar in the Granville store. Miller, now armed with parts and a knowledge of electronics, set to work building what he called the Dial-a-City.

“Anyone coming in from anywhere else in the world – London, New York, Australia, whatever – they could dial up their city and the time would come up in their city,” Miller explained.

“That's pretty early for something like that,” he added.

An in-store promotion for a flight on Pan American Airlines then got the attention of the airline.

“One of the fellows came over to the store and he looked at the Dial-a-City and he said, ‘Pan Am is looking for an interesting device to use at the World's Fair in New York in 1964. Would you be interested in talking to them?'”

Miller of course said yes.

“It was a big hit,” Miller said.

Pan Am was impressed, and asked Miller to make a version in four languages that could fit inside a Boeing 707.

Again Miller said yes.

Del the watchmaker

By 1965, Miller had become well known for his Dial-a-City, but to the young entrepreneur, it was just a fun experiment. What he really wanted to try was watchmaking.

“I actually started to design an electronic digital watch in 1964. By late '64 a fellow who my dad dealt with from the Omega watch company in Switzerland said, ‘We should show this to Omega.'” Miller agreed.

Omega and Miller were setting out to build the world's first digital watch. Miller had some ideas on how he could do it, but he needed expensive equipment like oscilloscopes that he couldn't obtain in the jewelry store. So he went back to UBC, but not as a student.

“Because I went to UBC, I phoned up an old professor who went there and I said, ‘Could I use the lab?' And he said yes.”

Miller used the lab when classes were out. For five years, he worked on his digital watch, at times with Omega in Switzerland and other times with Texas Instruments (Nasdaq:TXN) in the United States.

But in the fall of 1969, Japanese watch company Seiko went to market with a quartz analog watch that brought Miller's work to a sudden halt. The introduction of Seiko's watch established the quartz movement as the industry standard.

“It was not my movement. My movement was 10 times as accurate as anything mechanical at the time, but the quartz was 10 times as accurate as my watch,” Miller said.

It wasn't a complete loss, however – Seiko's watch was analog, and Miller's experience with digital timekeeping while working on the Dial-a-City allowed Omega to come out with the first quartz digital watch.

Two of the prototypes still exist – one with Miller, and the other in a Swiss museum.

Del the businessman

In the late 1960s, the Millers, after selling Sony radios for a decade, received the first Sony high-fidelity music system.

“One of the fellows who dealt with my dad came down to see me and said, ‘What do you think of this?' I looked at it. I said, ‘This is fantastic.' He left it with me for one day,” Miller said. “In that one day I sold the system.”

Miller asked for more electronics and started carrying more brands, and eventually his electronics stock took over half his father's store.

That led to the opening of Miller's Electronics at 1120 Davie Street in 1969.

“That was the first real superstore in Canada – a big department store. So all of a sudden in the late '70s, we became a very significant stereo dealer in the West.”

By 1980, Miller had 22 stores. Sony was impressed. They approached Miller and offered to purchase his business and turn Miller's Electronics into the Sony Store.

“I said yes, because I say yes to everything,” Miller said.

After selling his business, Del Miller retired. It lasted a month.

Del the artist

“I'd had enough of walking the dog,” Miller said.

“I wanted to do something new. It was a drive to be different. To do something different.”

In 1990, with no new business opportunities knocking on his door, Miller made his own. On November 11 he opened Casa Home Décor, where, with his daughter Nadine Miller, he sold china and furniture for nine years.

However, in 1999, as with his electronics business before, Miller received an offer to buy his business. He said yes, of course – but on the condition that he could keep the Casa name.

So Miller put large-business management behind him and focused on his other love: painting. In 2009, Miller and his daughter opened their current Casa store at 1636 West 2nd Avenue, which operates as a gallery that features the work of local artists – including Miller.

Now, after five years, Casa is closing down. As far as Miller is concerned, it's the last business he'll ever own. But he's just as enthusiastic about what's coming next.

“I'm going to paint. I'm just going to paint, that's it.

“And maybe I'll do a little bit of travelling,” he said. Suddenly taking out his old prototype digital watch from 1964, he added, “There are a few places I'd like to go back to.”