Larry H Miller

Larry H. Miller, husband, father, grandfather, entrepreneur, philanthropist, community advocate and humanitarian, passed away from complications due to type 2 diabetes on February 20, 2009. He was 64. He created the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies, one of the 10 largest retail automobile operations in the United States. Larry was born in 1944 and grew up in the Capitol Hill area of Salt Lake City, Utah. Following his graduation from West High, Miller married his high school sweetheart, Gail Saxton, and began working construction until 1964 when he went to work for American Auto Parts. In 1966, he became the parts manager at a Utah auto dealer, and then later moved to Denver to work as the parts manager for two Denver Toyota dealerships. He was soon promoted to operations manager over five Toyota stores, where he became the number one Toyota parts dealer in the United States and the first to hit a million in sales, and then two million. In 1979, Miller purchased a Toyota dealership in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray, Utah. It opened as Larry H. Miller Toyota. In the years that followed, he opened many more dealerships. Today, the Larry H. Miller Management Company operates 23 different automotive brands under 42 dealership locations in Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Colorado. n 1985, Miller became a co-owner of the struggling NBA franchise, the Utah Jazz, and then a year later purchased the remaining portion from Sam Battistone to become the sole owner. As the team began to have success, they quickly outgrew the Salt Palace Arena where they played. It was at this point that Larry decided to build the Delta Center, now EnergySolutions Arena, in downtown Salt Lake City. The arena, commonly known as home to the Utah Jazz, has been the stage for thousands of special events ranging from rock concerts and rodeos to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.