Featured Business
Miller Paint
by Virginia Bruce

Michael Coats has managed the Murray store for four years

When Michael Coats commutes from Tigard to his job as Manager of Miller Paint in Cedar Mill, he doesn't worry about traffic. He leaves home at 5:30, and "the roads are pretty calm," he says. He gets to the store and takes care of paperwork and then gets everything ready for the rush at 7 am when the professional painters come in to stock up for their day's work.

"Between 7-9 am, our customers just want to get in and out as quickly as they can. They know exactly what they want. It's almost like we run two paint stores here, one for the pros, and one for the consumers who appreciate the time we can take with them to help them make selections and figure out what tools and supplies they need."

The customer service capability of Miller Paint is one of the things that sets it apart from the big-box stores, where sales people have a minimum of training and very little time to spend with customers. Coats, who has worked as a store manager for several other companies, says that is what impressed him about the company when he began nearly six years ago. “During the training, we were hearing, ‘Take care of the customer.’ I kept waiting for them to say, ‘but’ and I found out there is no 'but,' it's 'take care of the customer, period.”

Every time you take home custom-colored paint, an entry is made in this notebook, so it can be matched later with confidence

Because of this emphasis on customer service, they hire people for their people skills, and then teach them what they need to know. Employees help customers with everything including choosing the right colors, paint types and primers, advice on prep and application, and solving tricky problems. "It's a steep learning curve for our folks at first, and we continue to train and improve our skills continually," says Coats.

Another thing that sets Miller apart is that it's a northwest company. The coatings that they sell are formulated for our weather conditions, and the colors are selected to look great in our often-gray light. Colors for their Devine line were created by local artist Gretchen Schauffler.

The pivot point of the Color Is system places the brightest and most chromatic colors at the center of the display. As you work your way outward, colors become more muted. The bottom level is reserved for the neutrals versions of all of these families with warm on the left and cool on the right.

In addition to being a protective coating for interior and exterior surfaces, paint is really about color. Miller works with, "The Color Guild, a collection of regional companies that order products together (often called a 'buying group') to gain economies of scale. The Guild also works with the Color Marketing Group to identify trends and develop new color palettes such as the yearly Color Canvas collection that will be hitting Miller stores in late December," says Miller's advertising and marketing manager, Dan Saunders.They employ a relatively new color-choosing system from the Color Guild that is called, "Color Is."

Miller has been one of the leaders in developing environmental- and people-friendly paint. Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are the fumes that paint gives off during and after painting. One of their lines, Acropure, is Green Seal Certified as a low odor, Ultra-Low-VOC, environmentally responsible interior acrylic finish. Another line, the Devine series, incorporates a designer palette along with a texture that is very easy to apply, and they recently introduced Devinegreen, the low VOC version of Devine.

In addition, they provide information on their website (millerpaint.com) and through their staff to help architects and designers qualify for LEED certification for their projects. Saunders says, "Miller has been pushing the green side of the envelope long before it came to be trendy. We believe in making good products, and that naturally led to lower VOC's, lower-odor products, and longer-lasting products as paint technology has improved."

The computer that controls the tints added to paint is accurate to within half-a-drop

Their commitment to the environment extends to their manufacturing processes. Many of their paints contain high proportions of locally-sourced raw materials. They participate in both PGE's Green Power and NW Natural's Smart Energy programs, and practice in-store energy conservation and recycling. Coats mentioned that he's getting ready to install solar panels on the building that will help power the store.

They also participate in the Metro Paint program, both as a sales and collection point. Unused paint can be dropped off at the store, where Metro picks it up for blending and repackaging. Then the Metro Paint is made available for sale at Miller. "The colors can be a little unpredictable," says Coats, "and we can't always get the ones you might want. But if you find what you need, it's usually about half the regular price and it is good quality paint."

In addition to interior and exterior paint, Miller carries a complete stock of, "everything you need to get your job done," from ladders to rags, rollers to safety equipment. They carry additional lines of products to round out their offering. Saunders says, "In many cases, the non-Miller products are of a type that are very specialized, and require specialized technologies and raw materials to create that we simply don't have the capacity for." These products range from concrete stain—Pars Market used it to color their floors—to the products for faux finishes that have become so popular.

They rent sprayers, pressure washers, and wallpaper steamers. They also carry window coverings and a broad selection of wallpapers that range from $20-$200 per roll. Most of the wallpapers are special-order including a line that must be shipped from England!

(L to R) Ernest Miller Jr., Herbert Miller Sr., and Walter Miller, Grand Avenue store, Portland, 1926

Miller Paint history

Ernest Miller was a German born scenic artist and house painter who moved to Oregon in 1885. He was unhappy with the paints that were available. At that time paint had to be shipped "around the horn" from the east coast, and the quality did not stand up to the demands of our Northwest weather. In 1890 he purchased a stone mill and began manufacturing his own paints. His products were of such good quality that other paint contractors came to him to ask if they could use "Ernest Miller Paint" and the Miller Paint Company was born.

Ernest Miller and his three sons owned and operated Miller Paint Company in Portland, Oregon for two complete generations. In World War I two of the Miller sons left to join the military. Walt Miller, Ernest's youngest son who had quit high school in 1916 to work at the company, became the company manager, a position that he maintained until his death in 1990.

The original store in downtown Portland was moved to the Grand Avenue location in 1926, which was built to house the new paint store, the manufacturing facility, and the corporate offices. That store plus a store in Seattle and one in Beaverton comprised the sales locations until the '70s when the company expanded into additional locations in Seattle, Beaverton, and Vancouver.

The manufacturing side of the business grew as well, with two plant relocations in 1933 and 1955. The current Whitaker Way facility was begun in 1975, with manufacturing starting in 1978 and the corporate offices moving from the Grand Avenue location in 1995.

Additional Oregon store expansion in the 80's and through the mid-90's continued into Gresham, Salem, Corvallis, Tualatin, Oregon City, Eugene, and into Burien, Washington in 1995. After a five-year pause, store expansion began again in the year 2000 with the completion and opening of their 14th store in Salmon Creek, Washington. The Murray store, located in a building just north of Cornell that used to be Joe Smith's Grocery Store and Butcher Shop, was opened in 1998.

The company has grown to include 35 stores throughout the northwest and more than 250 employee-owners. It was Walt Miller's dream that the company remain independent and that it remain an employee-owned company. In 1999 the employees of Miller Paint purchased the outstanding shares of stock and created an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP).

After about six months with the company, employees get a certain percentage of their salary in stock for their retirement. Dan Saunders says, "this has worked very well for us. The sense of ownership and pride that goes along with being an employee-owner drives our employees to do their best every day."

The Murray store just recently joined the Cedar Mill Business Association. Coats says when they were approached by a CMBA member, "we jumped at the chance to associate more closely with our fellow merchants in the Cedar Mill area. Miller Paint, being a regional company originating in Portland, is just a small business that made it. We focus heavily on staying involved in the community that is so instrumental to our success." They offer a discount to all CMBA member businesses and their employees, equal to the lowest tier of professional discount. They started carrying the Cedar Mill News on the counter, and it has proven to be very popular with customers as they wait the two-to-seven minutes while their paints are mixed.

The Murray store is open daily; Monday-Saturday from 7 am to 6 pm, and Sunday 11 am to 4 pm. It is located at 1040 NW Murray Rd., just north of the intersection of Murray and Cornell. The phone number is 503-574-4411. The company website is millerpaint.com

NEWS HOME