Upon graduation from West Point, Tom Millar ‘70 became a platoon leader in the infamous 101st Airborne during Vietnam. After receiving an honorable discharge from the Army, he earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1977 and joined the McKinsey & Company consulting firm. Recruited to run a struggling aluminum-grill manufacturing firm in the City of Industry in California, Millar diversified the company’s product output and put it on a profitable course as a manufacturer of decorative hardware to order.
That company, Emtek, is the one Millar continues to lead today, successfully bringing together and excelling in product leadership, operational excellence and customer intimacy, all seemingly conflicting business priorities.
Millar has taken the company from a handful of employees to nearly 400 at the end of 2014. Emtek’s facility, once a mere 40,000 square feet, is five times that today. Millar accomplished this by building the proper management team, starting with plant and sales managers who could keep up with his strategic innovations, and by foreseeing a trend in the marketplace for customer interest in finish and handle options.
Emtek is dedicated to bringing interesting, well-made hardware back into American homes. Millar made it Emtek’s mission to restore quality and style to American hardware by providing a broad, interesting range of quality products. Since he joined the company in 1981, Emtek has become a leader in outsourcing of components. Importing as many as 9,000 different components from around the world, Emtek provides a clean-industry environment in the City of Industry, where more than 300 employees assemble the custom ordered hardware.
Millar resides in San Marino, California, and continues to work from Emtek’s City of Industry headquarters when he is not traveling for business. He is active in the alumni associations of Harvard Business School and West Point.