Carla Walker-Miller is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur, and Detroit booster.[1] She is the founder and CEO of Walker-Miller Energy Services.
Walker-Miller has said she chose engineering as a career due to her concerns about how to afford college, so she chose a profession that had the best earning potential without an advanced degree.[2] She received a full scholarship and completed a BS in civil engineering from Tennessee State University in Nashville.[2]
Walker-Miller founded Walker-Miller Energy Services in 2000.[3] Before the Great Recession, she sold a wide range of energy equipment, similar to the work she had done for an engineering firm before founding her own company.[3][2] She then shifted her business towards offering energy-efficiency evaluations,[3][4] and Walker-Miller Energy Services made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies five times between 2007 and 2016.[5] As CEO, Walker-Miller has also adopted a $15 minimum wage and a policy against the exclusion of people with a criminal history from employment.[5]
In 2014, she was selected to participate in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, and received intensive training.[3][6][7] She has since credited the program with helping the success of her business.[3][8] As of 2018, company contracts include utility companies in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.[2]
In 2020, she was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Trustees at The Henry Ford.[9]
Walker-Miller has twin sons.[12]