Paul S. Miller, former leader of EEOC, dies at 49

During his childhood growing up in East Northport, Paul Steven Miller demonstrated an early political appetite.

He collected autographs - not of movie stars or athletes, but of the movers and shakers in government.

"He had Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey," said his sister, Marjorie Piqueira. "It foreshadowed who he became later on in life."

Miller, who was born with dwarfism and who went on to become an adviser to two presidents on disability policy and employment law, rising to lead the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, died of sarcoma Oct. 19 at his home on Mercer Island, near Seattle. He was 49.

"He really felt like it was a calling" to work in public service, said his wife, Jennifer Mechem, 46, a former disability policy coordinator at the federal Department of Education.

"People have talked a lot about him being an advocate for disability rights. He did have a personal stake in it, but he always explained it in the context of equal rights for everybody," she said.

"He never let anything stop him," said Piqueira, 51, an administrative assistant from Pittsburgh, Pa. "He used his disability to his advantage."

Miller graduated from John Glenn High School in Elwood in 1979, where he excelled in his classes, played in the marching band, was president of the student council and an Eagle Scout, Piqueira said. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School.

Miller practiced civil litigation in Los Angeles before he headed into public service in 1992, when he helped Bill Clinton in his presidential campaign and transition. He spent most of the next two decades working in Washington, D.C., focusing on employment and personnel policy.

Clinton appointed him deputy director of the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs, then in 1994 the commissioner of the EEOC. Miller left the post in 2004 to teach at the University of Washington's law school, his wife said. "He loved the students," Mechem said.

Miller took a leave in 2009 to help another newly elected presidential administration. He joined President Barack Obama in the Presidential Personnel Office, where he helped pick the candidates to build the administration's ranks.

In the past year, Miller commuted between Seattle and Washington, D.C., working 16-hour days while undergoing chemotherapy for his fifth recurrence of cancer. He doted on his family life in the meantime. "We had dinner at home almost every night," his wife said.

Miller is also survived by daughters Naomi Mechem-Miller, 10, and Delia Mechem-Miller, 5, sister Nancy Miller of Tampa, stepsister Susan Wolfert of Westchester and sister-in-law Elaine Miller of Atlanta. His younger brother, Daniel, of Atlanta, died in 2001 of cancer.