About the Authors

Brian Miller

Brian Miller is the executive director of United for a Fair Economy. Over the past 20 years, Miller has worked to build cross-class alliances of citizens from all walks of life—business leaders, workers, family farmers, seniors, students, and others—to work together for change, promoting healthy communities and an economy that works for all Americans.

A native of south Louisiana, Miller has a unique perspective on business and market economics. As the son of a stockbroker and an accountant, Miller was educated early about the workings of the stock market in a household surrounded by statues of bulls, bears, and ticker tape awards.

Miller received his degree in political science, with a secondary focus in economics from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Throughout both his academic and professional careers, Miller has sought to deepen his understanding of the points where public policy intersects with economics.

In addition to efforts in his home state of Louisiana, Miller has helped move campaigns and organizing efforts across the South and the Midwest. Some of his earliest experiences in Louisiana centered on the abuse of corporate tax breaks that left schools without adequate resources. He also helped grassroots leaders successfully protect their community from an unwanted hazardous waste facility south of Baton Rouge, and he helped farmers in Kentucky secure cost-sharing funds to pay for water-quality buffers.

Most of Miller’s experience comes from his 12 years as executive director of Tennesseans for Fair Taxation (TFT). As director of TFT, he was an integral part of a historic fight that brought the state to within five votes of enacting a state income tax as part of a broader tax reform package to fund education and other services—an effort that was supported by business groups and community groups alike.

Miller took over as executive director of United for a Fair Economy in 2009. At UFE he has continued his commitment to cross-class organizing, working with grassroots groups, unions, and business leaders. He has also helped organize business leaders and other high-wealth individuals in support of progressive tax reform efforts. In this role he has worked with a wide array of business leaders, including some of those profiled in this book.

The author of numerous reports garnering coverage in major national publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, Miller has also appeared on national television programs like Fox Business. He is a frequent guest on radio programs and has been quoted in major media outlets across the nation. He is a regular op-ed writer and a contributor to various online and print publications.

Miller is an avid cyclist and an active member of his community. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts, with his wife, Daria, and their two young children.

Mike Lapham

Mike Lapham is the founding director of Responsible Wealth, a project of United for a Fair Economy. Responsible Wealth amplifies the voices of more than 700 progressive business leaders and other affluent individuals in public policy debates to promote progressive tax policy and greater corporate accountability in Congress, in the media, and in corporate boardrooms.

Born in Glens Falls, New York, the youngest of four boys, Lapham was raised in Rochester, where he attended excellent and well-funded public schools. He earned his BA at Dartmouth College, where he majored in urban studies and public policy and wrote his honors thesis, “The History and Causes of Homelessness.” He later received a master’s degree in community economic development (the nonprofit equivalent of an MBA) from New Hampshire College.

Lapham was a fifth-generation owner of the Finch, Pruyn & Co. paper mill in Glens Falls, New York, co-founded by his great-great-grandfather Samuel Pruyn in 1865 and sold in 2007. Lapham donated more than half a million dollars of his income in the 1980s and 1990s to nonprofit organizations doing community organizing and social change work.

Lapham inherited a passion for economic and social justice from his parents, who were active in civil rights and economic justice efforts. Following college, he spent 10 years developing affordable housing in both the private and public sectors. As a housing specialist at Mintz Levin law firm in Boston, Lapham gained experience in the financial and legal aspects of housing development, becoming a statewide expert in use of the Comprehensive Permit Law to build mixed-income housing.

In 1990 Lapham joined the City of Boston’s Public Facilities Department as a project manager, working with both for- and nonprofit developers, service providers, and neighborhood groups to create housing for people with AIDS, the homeless, and the mentally ill. He became the city’s AIDS housing project manager, leading the campaign to develop 500 units of AIDS housing in Boston. His six years of working for the city provided insight on the importance of public programs as well as the challenge of working in the public sector, where expectations are high but resources are limited.

In 1997 Lapham co-founded and became the founding director of the Responsible Wealth project at United for a Fair Economy. Thanks to the support of his colleagues at UFE and the dedicated members of Responsible Wealth around the country, the project continues to thrive. Lapham is regularly interviewed for regional and national print publications and is a frequent guest commentator on CNBC, MSNBC, Fox, and various radio programs.

Lapham rides his bike to work year-round on public roads, bike paths, and bike lanes and is an avid squash player. He lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, with his wife, Amanda, and their three young children.