Assignment of an Indian Bureau economic development officer to work with the Miccosukee Seminole Indians living along the Tamiami Trail in Florida on plans for improving their economic and social status was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.
The man chosen for the assignment is Reginald C. Miller, a veteran of 23 years' service with the Bureau, who recently completed a survey of the Miccosukees' situation and prospects at Secretary Udall's request.
The decision to assign an economic development officer to work with the Miccosukees was reached at a meeting in Washington on September 5 involving officials of the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs and William Kidd, administrative assistant to Florida's Governor Farris Bryant.,
At the meeting Miller reported on his survey findings over the past several months. He emphasized that highway expansion and drainage construction projects of both State and Federal agencies now under way or planned in southern Florida will shortly bring the Miccosukees within reach of profitable cattle and ranching operations, tourist enterprises and other opportunities for economic development. To take adequate advantage of these opportunities, he added, will require a stable Miccosukee business organization.
In his 23 years with the Bureau Miller has had a wide variety of assignments chiefly in finance, auditing and credit positions. His most recent post before undertaking the Miccosukee survey was as assistant manager of the Menominee Indian Mills, Neopit, Wise. Prior to that he served for two years as a credit officer at the Seminole Agency, Dania, Fla. Born at Gresham, Wisconsin, in 1918, he is of Indian descent and attended Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kans., in 1937 and 1938.
Miller is now living with his wife and three children at Homestead, Florida, but plans to establish new headquarters at some point on the Tamiami Trail in the near future.
