Larry Miller has traveled the globe for his career.
As a human resources executive with Lubrizol Corp., he spent two years in France. During a stint with Diebold in Canton, Miller helped establish its international division from scratch, growing the company’s employees outside the U.S. from 200 to 6,000 in just five years. And as an adventurous grad student, he lived in Europe for five years.
But each time he’s always returned home to Cleveland, where he moved with his family when he was 6 years old.
“I’ve always liked exploring different places and perspectives,” Miller says. “But there is also something about coming back home that has been very important to me. … I have a strong sense of pride and a strong sense of identity with Cleveland.”
Now, instead of opening up international offices abroad, Miller is working to bring people from other parts of the world and the nation here.
He became president of Global Cleveland in October after taking an early retirement from Lubrizol, where he was vice president of human resources.
For Miller, it’s a stark change. “This is a good balance to the corporate environment,” he says. “We don’t have long planning horizons or complicated procedures or long approvals. Those are aspects of a startup that are quite enjoyable.”
Global Cleveland launched with a summit in May and hopes to revive the region’s economy by attracting 100,000 newcomers to Northeast Ohio in the next 10 years.
Miller believes his background in human resources makes him the perfect person to lead Global Cleveland’s attraction efforts, retain internationals who are already here, and convince native Ohioans to move back home from places like New York City.
“This is a community that I just feel very fortunate to live in,” Miller says. “It’s a region that has been great to me, and I’ve always wanted to do everything I could to give back.”
IB: What has Global Cleveland been doing since you came on board in October?
LM: Most of our programs to date are focused on the retention side. We’ve got Pathways for Healthcare Professionals, which is intended to help health care professionals who have immigrated to our area. They’ve trained overseas as doctors or nurses, and they’ve gotten here but aren’t yet into the health care system. And health care is one of the sectors where they are looking for lots of talent. We’re helping these individuals learn about the health care industry in Northeast Ohio, get their credentials translated into English and recognized over here, and get them working in the health care industry.
IB: How do you go about attracting people to come to Cleveland?
LM: We’re about to open our welcome hub at Public Square. Newcomers can come, and we will help them address questions like, “How can I connect with employers, or find a place to live that meets my desires?” and “If I want to start a business, how can I do that?”
IB: Besides immigrants, whom do you think you can attract to Cleveland and the region?
LM: We are also in the process of attracting boomerangers, ... people who grew up in Cleveland, but they’ve gone to other places like New York and Boston. We commissioned a study that showed us the time is right to attract those people back to Cleveland.
IB: Why now?
LM: The migration pattern has already turned around. It used to be that we were worried about the brain drain, but now it’s coming back. In the last year, more people came to Cleveland from New York than the other way around.
IB: What are you pitching to those who are looking into this region?
LM: The research is pretty clear, that when people are making decisions about jobs, they are looking at job opportunities but also are there career possibilities there. And they are looking at the cost of living, and they are looking at available housing. They are looking at access to health care. If you look at every one of those criteria, Cleveland scores very well.