Hello friends! We are thrilled to feature Kathy Miller, who began her career as a traffic manager for a home shopping network on Lifetime TV and says that laid the foundation for her decades of success as a marketing maven. She is also a licensed Realtor in Florida. Scroll down for our Q&A!
PW Classmates: What do you do now for work?
Kathy Miller: I have been the Marketing Director for The Ronto Group for over 28 years. We develop residential communities, including single-family homes and golf course communities, and over the last 10-12 years we’ve focused mostly on high-rise and mid-rise communities from Tampa to Marco Island, including our newest project in West Palm Beach.
I manage and launch each project to market, working with incredible ad agencies (including my brother’s), photographers, 3D animators, rendering artists, interior designers, architects, builders, and more. At least I got to put my architectural design/drawings education to work!
PW Classmates: What has your career path been?
Kathy: I went to school for Interior Design at Beaver College, now Arcadia University in Glenside. I minored in photography but quickly realized I didn’t want to hang over a drafting table endlessly (no CAD yet). Instead of changing majors, I dropped out at the end of junior year. I was anxious to start my life. I worked for my father’s business partner in Jenkintown as a traffic manager for a home shopping network airing on Lifetime TV, then eventually worked for my dad in West Chester, who owned and ran the fulfillment center for the products sold on the home shopping network.
We also created POS displays for car dealerships. I learned enough from both jobs to know my future was in marketing. I spent 4 years managing the Glenside Wawa, then moved to a plastic tubing manufacturer in Willow Grove as the SE and SW territory sales representative, and later moved into Marketing within that company.
Kathy says, “Ellie, my champion Beagle, was diagnosed with liver cancer over a year ago, and she’s still hangin’ in there!”
Meanwhile, my sister moved to Marco Island, and I dog-sat for her while she went on vacation. It became increasingly difficult to leave the sunshine, sand, and Gulf of Mexico to return to Philadelphia. In January 1998, she called me, told me there was a job opening at Ronto in accounting, and asked, “Was I ready to move?” I’ve never looked back and have been in Naples ever since. I suffered in accounting for a while (math is NOT my forte) and eventually landed the job as marketing director – never a dull moment.
PW Classmates: Tell us about your family.
Kathy: I am not currently married, and I never had children. Oddly, of the four kids in my family, only my oldest sister had children, so I am blessed to be an aunt and a great-aunt. I remember my mother telling me as a young girl to learn to be self-reliant and self-sufficient, which was a lesson she’d learned when my parents divorced. And so, I did just that. With that advice and the Miller work ethic, I achieved my first desire: a career.
PW Classmates: What did you dream of becoming when you were in high school?
Kathy: An artist of some sort, an interior designer — and secretly, a singer.
PW Classmates: What advice would you give to your high school self?
Kathy Miller, 1982
Kathy: Don’t give in to the pressure of deciding “what you want to do with your life”; you will find your passion when you explore and mature. You haven’t even left the house yet! Listen to your parents; time really does fly. Make sure you have equal amounts of fun and work, but never more work than fun.
PW Classmates: What advice do you have for others about creating your best life?
Kathy: Follow your heart, not your bank account. The rewards will be worth much more in the end.
PW Classmates: What would you like to say to all of your classmates today?
Kathy: I remember my years at PW with great reverence. While I was too young to make monumental decisions about my life path, I somehow chose friends who have become lifelong friends. Some things you just inherently know. I can only hope everyone feels happy and satisfied with their lives. We spent every day for a few years with some incredible people. Go class of ’82.
Contact Kathy: millerk@ronto.com