Our Meet the Professionals series puts students in the room with leaders and innovators across varied professions. Our latest Meet the Professionals brought residential designer, Pat Miller, to our Carver students at Brien McMahon High School.
“The most wonderful thing about my business, and something that is not true about other occupations, is that people can touch my work,” Pat said in the BMHS library. “I solve problems. I make people happy.” Pat recounted to our students how she came to architecture and residential design. As the first of her family to attend college, Pat funded her own education at Emerson College where she pursued a major in Drama. This was followed by further academic ventures at Quinnipiac, where Pat studied English. She acknowledged it was an unexpected background for someone in an architectural profession. “I had never thought I was good at math,” Pat remarked, “because I couldn’t ‘see’ algebra or calculus. But I could see geometry. I could see spaces.” When Pat bought 4 acres in Redding, CT, her ability to see spaces ushered in a new ambition: she wanted to build her own house.
To do so, Pat attended Norwalk State Tech’s (now Norwalk Community College) Architectural Engineering program. Shortly after building her own home, she worked in local architecture firms: namely those who were eager to welcome women into the space. “If women were in the field at all,” Pat said, “they were usually interior designers. There just wasn’t encouragement for women in science and math. But women can and should be engineers.” Pat encouraged our students to put themselves out there and chase their passions where they occur. As she flipped through a slideshow of her builds, she made it clear that the only thing inhibiting one’s ability to create is the gumption to try.
Pat set a wonderful example for our students of perseverance, interdisciplinary learning, and the power of belief in oneself. Our students emerged from her Meet the Professionals with confidence and inspiration. Thank you so much for sharing your story with our kids, Pat!
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Pat Miller has created beautiful homes and living spaces in Fairfield County since 1980. Her firm specializes in dealing with local regulatory boards, making presentations before zoning and conservation boards. All projects utilize the services of licensed engineering professionals, established designers and skilled, proven, and reliable local contractors – with all decisions the result of a consensus between the client and designer. Perhaps the greatest sign of her success is the recognition that her clients identify her designs as homes that combine function and design with that elusive quality that is so rare in many of today’s homes – charm. The result: the pleasure of walking into one’s own home and saying, Wow! Learn more at Pat Miller: pat-miller.com