Dane A. Miller ( – February 10, 2015) was an American business executive. Miller was co-founder of the orthopedic company

Biomet Biomet, Inc., was a medical device manufacturer located in the Warsaw, Indiana, business cluster. The company specialized in reconstructive products for orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, craniomaxillofacial surgery and operating room supplies. In ...

and was its president and chief executive from 1978 to 2006. Miller was brought up in

Springfield, Ohio Springfield is a city in Clark County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located in southwestern Ohio along the Mad River (Ohio), Mad River, Buck Creek, and Beaver Creek, about west of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus and northeast of ...

, and obtained a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in Mechanical Materials Science Engineering in 1969 from the

General Motors Institute Kettering University is a private university in Flint, Michigan. It offers Bachelor of Science, bachelor of science and master's degree, master’s degrees in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM (science, technology, engineer ...

(now

Kettering University Kettering University is a private university in Flint, Michigan. It offers Bachelor of Science, bachelor of science and master's degree, master’s degrees in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM (science, technology, engineer ...

) from which he received the Distinguished Alumnus award in 2010. He subsequently obtained a master's degree and a doctorate in Materials Science (Biomedical Engineering) from the

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati, informally Cincy) is a public university, public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1819 and had an enrollment of over 53,000 students in 2024, making it the ...

. After working for rival companies Zimmer and

Cutter Laboratories Cutter Laboratories was a family-owned pharmaceutical company located in Berkeley, California, founded by Edward Ahern Cutter in 1897. Cutter's early products included anthrax vaccine, hog cholera (swine fever) virus, and anti-hog cholera serum� ...

, Miller joined with Niles Noblitt, Jerry L. Ferguson and M. Ray Harroff, to found Biomet in 1977. Miller's own grandmother, Grace Shumaker, was the first recipient of a Biomet hip implant. To encourage public confidence in

titanium Titanium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...

as a material for implants, Miller arranged for a surgeon to introduce a piece into his own arm, which he left there for ten years to test its safety. In March 2006, Miller was removed from the company's board of directors, and his retirement was announced. A few months later, he headed a private equity consortium that bought back the business for $11.4 billion and still owned it in 2014. Miller became a consultant to the new company in addition to resuming the role of a director. The company later announced a merger with

Zimmer Holdings Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. is a publicly traded American medical device company. It was founded in 1927 to produce aluminum splints. The firm is headquartered in Warsaw, Indiana, where it is part of the medical devices business cluster. In 200 ...

."Zimmer Submits Revised Plan to European Regulators on Biomet Deal", ''Wall Street Journal'', 10 Feb 2015
Accessed 11 Feb 2015

References

Further reading