ga_gov_millner
GUY MILLNER
Age: 62 Born: February 16, 1936; Holly Hill, Florida Education: Florida State University, B.A. (1959) Military: U.S. Navy Reserves (1953-61) Family: Married - Virginia; Five children (two are stepchildren) Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia Religion: Presbyterian Career: Founder, CEO and Chair of Norell Corporation (1961-present); Candidate for U.S. Senate (1996); Candidate for Governor (1994) |
• Millner was born in Holly Hill, Florida to parents of modest means. His family lived in a two-bedroom house with no central heat, and he says he took bricks to bed to keep warm on cold nights.
• He worked his way through school, starting at his father's gas station at age 10 and later bagging groceries, delivering papers and working as a plumberÂ's assistant. He saved enough money to pay for his first year at Florida State University, and paid the rest by selling pots and pans door-to-door. He graduated from Florida State with a degree in political science.
• After finishing college in 1958, Millner moved to Atlanta and joined a small partnership in the personnel business. In 1961, he started a temporary services company with just $6,000. By 1997, his company had grown to $1.3 billion in revenues and 60,000 employees.
• In 1989, Millner promised a class of freshman at Cedar Grove High School that he would pay their college tuition for four years if they maintained a 2.5 or better grade point average and agreed to attend Georgia State or DeKalb College. Twenty-one students took him up on his offer. He has made the same promise to several classes since then.
• Millner's net worth is estimated to be more than $100 millon. He lives in the mansion built by Coca Cola magnate Robert Woodruff, which he purchased in 1989 for $7.5 million. Millner has come under fire for not paying his share of taxes, and he has resisted making his returns public. In 1994, under pressure from his opponent, he released his returns, which showed that, through creative accounting, he paid no taxes in 1991.
• Millner has been married three times and has five children, including two stepchildren. His current wife is a former model, Virginia Wright Millner.
• Although Millner has been active in the Republican Party since the early 1980s, his first bid for elected office was not until 1994 when he narrowly lost to Gov. Zell Miller. In 1996, he was the GOP nominee for Senate but lost to Max Cleland. Millner spent $1.7 million of his own money in 1994 and $6 million in 1996 and lost by only about 30,000 votes each time.