While most people are sound asleep at 3 a.m., odds are, Marc Miller isn't in his bed.

It's not unusual to find the energetic dean of Augusta State University's business school in a computer lab or his office, working on another project.

"He is one of those people that doesn't need a great deal of sleep and sometimes his best ideas ... come to him in the quiet of the night," said his wife, Linda.

That works well for Dr. Miller, 45, who took over as the dean of the James M. Hull College of Business a year and a half ago.

"I'll show up at quarter of eight, coming to work and he's headed back home for a while," said Barbara Coleman, the college's associate dean of outcomes.

Augusta State and its business school have come a long way from when Dr. Miller was an undergraduate and later graduate student in the 1980s, when it was known as Augusta College.

In that time, the business school has become accredited and its endowment has increased by millions.

Despite that progress, the Texas native - who came to Augusta at age 10 - knows he's going to get his hands a little dirty in the coming years as he works to simultaneously improve his school without becoming so exclusive it's inaccessible to much of the community.

"I want to see us move to the next level, both in national prominence and our reputation as a business school," he said.

"But I've got to be true to the mission of ASU, and the mission and vision of what we are, providing access to college to a wide range of individuals."

Lots of enthusiasm

It's 10 a.m. The mercury already is rising well past 80 degrees on this summer day and few students can be found traversing the grounds of the university.

In the conference room at the business school, however, a group of faculty and Dr. Miller, who can usually be found in a tie and jacket, get down to business.

Much of the morning's business is day-to-day tasks, such as setting calendars, discussing upcoming events and scheduling conferences for faculty members.

Although it seems mundane, it's also signals real change for the business school.

Since becoming dean last January, Dr. Miller has brought in several changes, including a multi-million-dollar endowment, a lecture series and a heavy emphasis on research.

"He just has a real vision for new direction, new programs," Dr. Coleman said. "I think that's his gift. You combine that with his high energy - you better stand back."

That energy is well known among his friends and colleagues, though his wife maintains that he's not always so lively.

"When he stops, he stops," she said.

It's his energy that has carried him through many changes in life, whether building up the business school or leaving a high-paying publishing job more than a decade ago to go back to school and teach.

Three years after relocating himself and Linda from Augusta to Birmingham, Ala., where he worked for International Thomson Publishing, Dr. Miller - whose own father taught at Medical College of Georgia - realized he wanted a life in academia, something he said he had always thought of pursuing.

He enjoyed the company car and good pay at the textbook-publishing division of Thomson, a job he had taken when he graduated with his master's in business administration in 1989.

But the long hours and time away from his family as a traveling textbook salesman were hard on everyone.

"I went to my wife and said 'I want to quit work, sell our possessions and go back to school,' " he said. "She gave me three years."

It was a risky proposition, especially because the couple had a six-month-old son, Alec. Yet, he and his family saw it as an adventure.

"If a person says they have no failures, they never took a risk," Dr. Miller said.

Just one month shy of that three-year deadline, Dr. Miller defended his dissertation at Auburn University and earned his doctorate degree in information management, a discipline that uses people, data and technology to design and implement programs and strategies for businesses.

Not long after graduation, he took a teaching position in 1994 with the University of West Georgia, in Carrollton.

Although information systems can be a difficult topic for students to relate to, Dr. Miller was able to put people at ease, said Dave Hovey, a professor of management at West Georgia and the former dean at the Richards College of Business, who hired him out of Auburn.

"He has an engaging personality, and I think people are just very comfortable around him," he said. "That makes it easier to get across some of that technical stuff."

He worked his way up to chairman for the department of management, even developing a new manual for his class when he didn't like the ones on the market.

The Millers loved life in Carrollton, but by 2000 the family needed a change of scenery, Dr. Miller said.

Only a year earlier, Mrs. Miller had given birth to a stillborn baby girl, which was hard on a family that had lost an infant daughter to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome the previous year. The family was still coping.

"We were in a small town, and it was a fishbowl atmosphere," she said.

When a position opened up at Augusta State, the timing seemed right. It was a good job for Dr. Miller; it was a chance to start over in a larger city; and, most important, it was home for the couple, who had met through Augusta Players, a community theater, in high school.

Mrs. Miller had lived in Augusta most of her life, and Dr. Miller had come by way of the Garden City when his father moved them from Beaumont, Texas, 90 miles east of Houston.

"It was the exact right combination," Dr. Miller said.

So the family of three packed up their belongings and headed east.

"I was looking forward to him working (in Carrollton), doing good things here, but by the same token, it was time for him to leave," Dr. Hovey said.

Coming home

It was about five years into his professorship at Augusta State when Jack Widener decided it was time to step down as dean.

At the time, Dr. Miller said he got the impression the committee was looking for a "seasoned dean" and he didn't apply. The first candidate search proved unsuccessful, because none of the prospects seemed a good fit.

It was during the second search that Dr. Miller dropped his name in the ring.

Though Dr. Miller lacked experience as a dean, he was young and energetic about the position, and that was an advantage, Mr. Widener said.

"I thought he would bring some enthusiasm because he was brand new dean," he said.

In his time as a professor, he had brought experience in the technical field of information systems that the business school lacked, Mr. Widener said.

While designing a major in management information systems, he developed an online section for those classes so that more students could enroll.

Though he came across as confident, Dr. Miller also knew he was taking on his biggest role yet.

"I think anybody who said they didn't have self-doubts would be lying," he said. "It's a huge responsibility. Of course I was nervous."

Although some people were unsure whether Dr. Miller was up to the challenge, a year and a half later, many see it differently, according to coworkers.

"I think it's fair to say there were a number of people who expressed concern about the direction we were going who have come back to say they were wrong," said Sam Sullivan, vice president of academic affairs at Augusta State University, who appointed the search committee.

In many ways, the gregarious, outgoing dean was a good fit, said Todd Shultz, a professor and associate dean at the Hull College of Business, who taught Dr. Miller while he was in the MBA program.

"He likes that limelight," he said with a laugh. "He's good at it. He likes meeting people. I don't like it."

He also brings something new to the table. Mr. Widener's business and industry background, including three decades at Georgia Power, helped him lead the school toward accreditation through Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and build a strong foundation. Dr. Miller knows what's needed to take it a step further.

"He has perspective of a faculty member," Dr. Coleman said. "He understands the pressure to do it all. You don't just walk in a classroom and teach."

For Dr. Miller, running a group of faculty and staff isn't that different from caddying - which he knows something about, having caddied for Bill Murray at the Augusta National Golf Club some years back.

As a caddy, he said, you can advise the golfer on a shot, but ultimately, it's up to him.

"My job is to make a faculty member's job as successful and set up the environment as best as I can," he said.

"And give them advice, to help them to find the right club, to show them a way they could go to be successful.

"But at the end of the day, that faculty member has got to do the work. So my job is to carry their bag."

He heavily pushes research and makes sure faculty members have software, assistants and other resources to do so, Dr. Coleman said.

He also isn't blind to a problem many business schools face: how to bring the real world into an academic institution so that students are prepared when they graduate.

He created a lecture series, with the first one bringing in speakers from the business community last year to discuss ethics.

The school also is working with the biotech incubator at the Medical College of Georgia to help scientists develop a business plan.

"We know that a better educated labor force helps attract new industry and gets them to stay," Dr. Miller said.

On a campus with many nontraditional students, he has created projects such as his executive MBA program, which allows people to complete a master's in business administration through intense weekend courses.

Perhaps his biggest success to date was in September, when Augusta-based real estate developer James M. Hull and his wife, Karen, donated $2 million - a record for the school - to be ear-marked for the college.

"When we first started talking to him, he showed us how the college of business had such a strong forward momentum both in enrollment growth, but more importantly in the improving the quality of its programs," said Mr. Hull, now the school's namesake.

The money is starting to trickle in, and its effect can be seen with the addition of incoming faculty, in addition to six new scholarships, faculty incentive programs and recruiting packages.

He might have risen to the rank of dean, said long-time friend and college classmate Phil Wahl, but sometimes it's hard to believe two guys who were good at school - but knew how to have a good time - have come so far.

But at the end of the day, Dr. Miller, who still teaches classes, is just a regular Joe.

"You think of the dean of the business school as someone who's arrived and has changed the way they talk and act," said Mr. Wahl, the senior vice president of CSRA community Banking for Wachovia. "I think he's the same guy I've known for years."

Looking forward

Although he's focused on the present, Dr. Miller already is thinking ahead.

For one, he aims to eventually earn a separate accreditation for the accounting program through AACSB, giving the program a higher degree of credibility.

He's also looking to not only develop his faculty by bringing in new talent, but to strengthen his current roster by offering more resources and incentive packages.

Though he is focused on improving the business school - and sees modest growth at 2 percent to 3 percent a year, on par with the university - he knows in order to do it successfully, he must balance that with the needs of the community.

Although the school typically hasn't had much contact with freshman and sophomore business majors, he said new initiatives will help prepare them come junior year.

A new fall 2008 freshman fellows program will offer classes in leadership, networking and other areas and give students a chance to get to know the business school from the beginning through extracurricular events.

By preparing freshman and sophomore business majors early on, they'll be ready for the business school come junior and senior year.

There's also a future to prepare for at home. Dr. Miller and his wife recently adopted a three-year-old girl, Nancy, from his cousin.

It was hardly planned. They got a call one Saturday, he said. Nancy's parents had drug problems, and they were asked to take care of her.

"We got the better end of the deal. It keeps you young," he said jokingly.

And he has learned to slow down some, spending his spare time on the 14-foot sailboat he built with his son or working on his golf score (Mr. Wahl said he often shoots in the 80 range).

"He's gotten better about pacing himself," Linda said.

Though Dr. Miller isn't sure what the next decade holds for him, personally or professionally, for now, he knows where his heart is.

"I'm not real interested in leaving Augusta," he said.

"There are a lot of reasons for me to stay here. I just want to grow with the business school."

Reach Laura Youngs at (706) 823-3227 or laura.youngs@augustachronicle.com.