In Sherm Miller’s industry, it can be tough to look like a good guy.
More than a few people probably consider real estate brokers to be up there with used car salesmen and tabloid reporters, but there aren’t too many people — if any — heard cursing Miller.
At least to the outside world, he’s a public relations dream for the Denver office of Cushman & Wakefield where he is managing director.
At “”damn near 50”, the New York City-born Miller is a savvy businessman with kind eyes and a boy-next-door approach that can be disarming for people who expect more formality.
Add to that formula some modesty and you’ve got a potent mix in an industry that depends on relationships.
That doesn’t mean Miller is perfect: He’s a registered Democrat but rarely votes that way. His colleagues have called him “”detail-oriented” and “”anal-retentive.”
Plus, there’s the time he and a few buddies were kicked off the high-school swim team just before state championships after they mooned a car.
“At the time it seemed like a tragedy,” he said, chuckling about it now. “Not good.”
Miller has had other potholes in his path. He’s been through one divorce and has quit corporate jobs that didn’t quite fit.
He also has lost people close to him – his father to hepatitis when Sherm was barely a teenager, a 6-year-old niece in a car accident about five years ago and more recently, a brother-in-law to a brain aneurism.
More than once, Miller has been called on to be the “”man” in the family.
“You can wallow in the self-pity or learn from it,” he said. “My father taught me things like trust and integrity. And my niece taught me to laugh at life. You think of those things rather than the pain that will always be there.”
The tough stuff has made him stronger in his relationship with wife Mary Sullivan, and he’s become more spiritual, he said.
The couple adopted two children — “”Buzz”, now 6, and Ralsey, 9 months — through Creative Adoptions, an agency that keeps the birth parents in close contact with the adoptive parents.
Ironically, Sullivan works for the competition at CB Commercial and is one of the region’s top investment brokers.
“It has forced us to talk about things that have more meaning,” Miller said.
The situation does make for the occasional awkward moment, such as the time when Miller showed up to make a presentation to a company looking for a broker only minutes after his wife had made her pitch.
“He’s incredibly supportive of me being a woman in the business and has a special understanding of what brokers go through,” she said, adding with a laugh, “he has never tried to manage me, which works out well for both of us.”
But it’s easy to tell that coaching is what Miller loves.
Before he was 21, he dropped out of swimming competition to coach, and helped steer a kid named Doug Northway to an Olympic bronze medal in swimming. Now, he straightens the ties of his brokers just as Lou Holtz used to fix the socks of his players, he said.
The attitude, Miller said, in the highly competitive real estate industry is “if you play for Notre Dame, you look like you’re playing for Notre Dame.”
Emily Narvaes is a Denver Post business writer
This story was originally published on Jan. 18, 1998 in The Denver Post
