Mike Miller
Mike Miller
Well Control Consultant
Mike Miller is known worldwide for his expertise and success in oilfield firefighting. His early career expertise in managing drilling and completion operations is combined with superior hydrocarbon firefighting and blowout control skills – a rare combination within this field. In his early years, Mike accompanied his father on assignments, learning the business and its dangers from the ground up.
In 1966, Mike assumed management responsibilities in drilling and completion operations with a leading energy company and was promoted to Operations Manager. His work in the drilling industry took him around the world including the North Sea, Libya, Venezuela, Indonesia, the United States and Canada. The challenge and satisfaction of taming dangerous situations finally drew him back home where he joined his father in Safety Boss in 1976 – succeeding the company in 1979.
Throughout the 1980s, Mike advanced Safety Boss through taking on the control of major blowouts in the Middle East. Following the Gulf War, Mike focused his efforts primarily on the international arena, working in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This established his international credentials and led to the selection of Safety Boss as one of a handful of firms chosen to control the fires of Kuwait at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Following the company’s successes in Kuwait, opportunities were presented to work on blowouts in Southeast Asia and Alaska.
The Kuwait Fires Project provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead a team that could help control an oilfield disaster of previously unimagined proportions. Mike Miller and the Safety Boss crews proved a match for the task at hand. In just 200 days, the Safety Boss team brought 180 wells under control – outperforming all other crews in the field including such industry legends at Red Adair and Boots & Coots.
In the deserts of Kuwait, Mike Miller successfully demonstrated his leadership abilities and the expertise that led to an oilfield firefighting record one of the toughest proving grounds in the world, that will not likely be matched again.
Following this career achievement, Mike was recognized in a number of ways. He was inaugurated as a member of the Order of Canada. He was named to the 1991 Maclean’s Magazine Honor Roll of Canadians. Oilweek Magazine named him Oilman of the Year and later in the 1990s, Mike Miller was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Athabasca University.