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Carla Walker Miller built a company that utilizes clean energy technology to improve lives and create economic opportunity.
Carla Walker-Miller is Founder and CEO of Walker-Miller Energy Services, a Detroit-based energy efficiency and clean energy solutions company focused on helping utilities, communities, and businesses reduce energy burden while expanding economic opportunity. A civil engineer by training, she began her career in the power and electrical equipment industry with Westinghouse (later ABB), where she spent nearly two decades in sales engineering and distribution leadership roles across the United States. Known for her leadership at the intersection of energy, entrepreneurship, and community impact, Carla has built a career centered on advancing access, innovation, and long-term economic vitality in Detroit and beyond. This episode (pt. 1) focuses on Carla’s origin story. The next episode (pt. 2) will focus on her experience building WM Energy Services.
Episode Summary
This episode (part 1) focuses on Carla’s origin story. The next episode (part 2) will focus on her experience building WM Energy Services.
In this episode, Carla Walker-Miller, reflects on her journey from growing up in a large, hardworking family in Nashville to navigating the realities of corporate America as a young engineer. She shares how a full-ride scholarship shaped her path into engineering, the lessons she learned during nearly two decades in the energy industry with Westinghouse and ABB, and the emotional toll of constantly proving she belonged in spaces where she was often the only one. Through candid stories—including a pivotal moment when a distributor refused to work with her—Carla explains why performance alone is not always enough for success. The conversation follows her move to Detroit in 1990, where family, resilience, and community ultimately reshaped her perspective and laid the foundation for her future as an entrepreneur.
- Urban Game Changers Episode 8
- Queen of Clean (*energy) – Pt. 1
- Carla Walker Miller, Founder and CEO of Walker Miller Energy Services
- Release date: February 13, 2026
- Length: 38:41
- Executive Producer and Host: W. David Tarver
- Producer: Ben Reynolds
- Associate Producers: Anshiqa Agrawal and Felipe Furtado, MD