Before taking leadership of UNA-USA, Ambassador Miller served as the chief executive of Plan International, a $650 million, 72-year-old international agency that focuses on improving children’s lives in developing countries. From January 2005 through January 2009, he was based at Plan International’s headquarters in London, where he was responsible for the coordination and management of all the agency’s operations in 49 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Ambassador Miller spent 29 years in the US Foreign Service working on policy issues in the Balkans, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. He began his career in Southeast Asia, serving in Thailand, where he focused on refugee issues. In the 1980s and early 1990s,he worked in the State Department on Middle East and North African matters, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He also served as executive assistant to the President’s Middle East envoy and was named ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999. During his two years in Sarajevo, he worked on postwar political and economic reconstruction as well as refugee and humanitarian issues.

Having served at the US Embassy in Athens three times, including as US ambassador to Greece in 2001-2004, Ambassador Miller concentrated on counterterrorism, focusing particularly on domestic terrorism in Greece and security during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. After receiving numerous State Department awards throughout his career, he retired from the Foreign Service in December 2004.

Ambassador Miller founded the Model United Nations program in Washington, DC, in 1993, a program that continues to flourish, and created a similar Model UN organization in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He initiated the Community Service Network for local and American volunteers at US embassies in Sarajevo and Athens and personally participated in rebuilding homes for war returnees in Bosnia and refurbishing buildings for refugees and disabled children in Athens. He helped found the Athens chapter of Habitat for Humanity and currently serves on the board of D.A.R.E. (a US-based antidrug organization) and other advisory boards.

About Rotary

The Westport Rotary Club is an organization of business and professional men and women united in service to their community, vocation and the world. One of the 33,000 Rotary Clubs worldwide, the Westport Rotary Club is known for philanthropy and for providing hands-on project leadership both locally and internationally.

In the past, Westport Rotary has been able to give to more than 35 not-for-profits up to $50,000 annually, supporting scholarships for Staples students and donating funding for international projects that help bring clean water and improve literacy for the poorest of the poor in the world. This year Rotary partners with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue the club's goal of eradicating polio worldwide.

For more information about Rotary, contact Rotary Membership Chair Dave Matlow at 203.227.3090, or visit the club's Web site atwww.westportrotary.org, or come to a meeting any Tuesday at noon at the Inn at Longshore.

PR Contact:

Ann Matlow, Westport Rotary Communications Co-Chair 203.227.3090, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Bill Hass, Westport Rotary Member and President, UNA-USA, Southwestern Connecticut Chapter, 203.454.7685, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it