Alumni Award Recipient

Award: 2011 Entrepreneurial Spirit Award

Achievements: While at Berry College, Lisa D. Miller, M.D., developed an admiration for Martha Berry that stuck with her as she later developed two very different but very successful businesses in pediatrics and real estate. She credits Berry College for giving her the tools she needed to manage the risks involved in her business ventures. “I acquired a work ethic from Berry College that taught me to work hard and stay focused in life,” she says. “The keys to my success have been determination and hard work.” Lisa first developed a vision of owning her own business while still enrolled as a student at Berry. After obtaining her medical degree, Lisa worked in a group practice for several years. But she still dreamed of owning a practice in her hometown of Covington, Ga., at the time an underserved area for pediatrics. She sought out the help of Newton Medical Center, which offered a program to help new physicians get established. In her first year of practice, she made over two times the amount of money the center had projected, and was able to take over the practice after only a year, establishing Lisa D. Miller, MD Pediatrics. Today, that business has expanded from a solo practice to one with four providers and 16 staff members and more than 5,000 patients. Lisa has since extended her practice to caring for the well-being of the children in the entire community. “She is truly an entrepreneur: one who begins with a vision of a business that is needed, and grows that vision into a viable and thriving reality,” says Laura A. Thomas, DVM, of Covington. But Lisa still felt the entrepreneurial pull toward new ventures. Having successfully grown and managed her own medical practice, she became interested in developing rental properties. Though financial advisors were skeptical, she decided to take the risk to open Dauphin Properties with her husband, Mike, in 2006. That business is now just as successful as her medical practice. After starting Dauphin Properties, she built a 6,000 square foot medical building and manages many rental properties in the community. “Reliable, self-motivated, and tested in the most demanding of clinical and business situations…she is a physician, mother, and business person who has the compassion, capability and people skills to make her a credit to any community,” says Robert S. Adams, MD, MBA, and retired U.S. Army Colonel. Lisa regularly comes back to campus for question and answer sessions with students interested in medical and veterinary careers. She is also a volunteer with the Child Advocacy Center for evaluations of child abuse and the Newton County Education Foundation. She has made many medical mission trips to Honduras and Mexico.