Audio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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 is the second in a two-part series. Episode 1 focused on Carla’s origin story. This episode focuses on Carla’s experience building Walker Miller Energy Services.
Episode Summary
Carla Walker-Miller explains how she left her corporate position at ABB after spotting a gap: manufacturers sold complex utility equipment but often neglected after-sale service and reliability. She built Walker-Miller Energy Services around that missing support layer and kept the company name to honor her father and father-in-law. She describes the hard transition into entrepreneurship, including learning that large-company cost assumptions did not translate to a small business. The 2008–2009 financial crisis then wiped out demand, triggered cancellations, and pushed her into debt, forcing her to improvise new revenue streams and rebuild.
The conversation shifts to Michigan energy policy creating an energy efficiency market through utility mandates. Walker-Miller entered first as a trade ally, then scaled into a prime implementation contractor managing utility contracts, budgets, and KPIs at large scale. She emphasizes workforce development through BPI certification, and says the company’s advantage is a values-driven culture focused on equity, stewardship, and delivering results with low stress, anchored by her line: courage is a renewable resource.
- Urban Game Changers Episode 9
- Queen of Clean (*energy) – Pt. 2
- Carla Walker Miller, Founder and CEO of Walker Miller Energy Services
- Release date: March 5, 2026
- Length: 57:34
- Executive Producer and Host: W. David Tarver
- Producer: Ben Reynolds
- Associate Producers: Anshiqa Agrawal and Felipe Furtado, MD