COVER STORY
6
Joey Miller, center, founded St. Lucie Battery & Tire and brought his sons into the business when they
were still young. Doug Miller, left, is now the company president, and Mickey Miller, right, is the executive
TCBusiness.com
“I think it was 1975 or 1976 when my
dad built his first real shop. He started in
the family’s chicken barn.”
Joey Miller and his family lived in a
house “right next to the shop, behind his
little grocery store,” said Doug Miller, a
1988 graduate of John Carroll High School.
By 2000, Doug Miller had bought the
downtown Fort Pierce store from his father,
then opened new outlets in Vero Beach
and Melbourne. The Melbourne one was
a casualty of the 2008-2010 recession. The
company’s sales slowed then, but it was
strong enough to take advantage of below
market leases to expand its footprint.
“After the recession was over, 2011-12, I
opened three stores in one year. That was
Sebastian, the Bayshore Boulevard Port St.
Lucie store and Jensen Beach and we just
kind of kept on rolling,” Miller said.
It was during this time that Doug Miller
pretty much took the reins from his father
as leader of the company, and became its
majority owner. The bigger company and
locations with storage capacities made
it versatile, he said. Tire customers don’t
want to wait for a shipment to come in.
They want same-day service, and the tires
are usually in stock or can be borrowed
from another company store.
There is a fleet of about 45 St. Lucie Battery
& Tire trucks, including 10 dedicated
to tire, battery and auto parts delivery to
other stores or direct to the bigger customers
at farm or work sites. Since its early
days, 24-hour roadside service has been
a feature, and there are about 20 service
trucks, Miller said.
Goodwill among customers is important,
and Miller says the company has
thrived on that since its founding. Supplier
relations are also key, which proved vastly
profitable at the onset of the ongoing
global supply chain problems.
After getting a tip from a rep of tire
distributor Penn Tires who said foreign
Banking
for what’s
next.
200 S. Indian River Dr. • Fort Pierce, FL
5001 Okeechobee Rd. • Fort Pierce, FL
15588 SW Warfield Blvd. • Indiantown, FL
2991 SW High Meadows Ave. • Palm City, FL
9815 US Hwy 1, Ste. 101 • Port St. Lucie, FL
2400 SE Monterey Rd, Ste. 100 • Stuart, FL
800.277.2175 • SouthStateBank.com Member FDIC
George Haley
Regional President
(772) 426-8155 • NMLS# 1201240
Jarrod Trefelner
SVP, Commercial Team Leader, St. Lucie
(772) 293-0636 • NMLS# 1189742
Cecilia Jaimes
AVP, Commercial Relationship Manager
(772) 337-0733 • NMLS# 1789476
Lisa Satur
VP, Commercial Relationship Manager
(772) 888-7014 • NMLS# 1209324
Michelle Tierney
VP, Commercial Relationship Manager
(561) 354-4207 • NMLS# 1301256
Randy Pennington
VP, Commercial Relationship Manager
(772) 426-8133 • NMLS# 1227800
Roxanne Peters
VP, Commercial Relationship Manager
(772) 408-5940 • NMLS# 708411
Stephen Wood
VP, Commercial Relationship Manager
(772) 403-6902 • NMLS# 1209325
>>
vice president. This photo was taken about 2008.
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