March 7, 2024: Robert Adams-Ghee, chief financial and administrative officer at Soles4Souls, passed away on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, following a sudden illness.
Adams-Ghee joined Soles4Souls in 2016 but had dedicated his entire professional career to nonprofit financial management, including 25 years at Nashville CARES. He was beloved by his finance and administration team and the rest of the Soles4Souls staff.
“Robert was an incredible CFO for Soles4Souls,” Buddy Teaster, president and CEO of Soles4Souls, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Not only did he bring the financial discipline we needed almost eight years ago, he led just as much with his heart. The work we do really mattered to him, in a personal and visceral way. Robert was a good man who could be tough when he needed to be and vulnerable when it counted. We will miss him for a very long time.”
Adams-Ghee was also very involved in important LGBTQ work in the Nashville area in the 1990s. Among other notable accomplishments, he was a founding member of Planet Nashville, a nonprofit that sends volunteers to do HIV fieldwork in Africa. It was there that he was honored with the creation of the Robert Adams-Ghee Global HIV/AIDS Education Scholarship.
More recently, Adams-Ghee enjoyed teaching at the University of Phoenix where he was named Faculty of the Year in 2015. He is survived by his husband Jesse.
Jan. 8, 2024: Daniel A. Miller of Falmouth, Maine, passed away on Dec. 30, 2023, at the age of 91. Born in Lynn, Mass., in 1932, Miller’s lengthy career in the footwear industry spanned more than six decades.
After graduating from Bowdoin College and serving as a commissioned officer in the US Army in 1956, Miller joined his father, Hyman Miller, at Moxie Shoe Company and spent years traveling the world for the business until it was sold to Shoe Corporation of America. In the early 1970s, Miller and his father founded TransAmerica Footwear in Maine, importing dress shoes from Europe and Latin America.
Then in 1975, his career hit a major turning point, when his maternal uncle, Harold Alfond — founder of Dexter Shoe Company — offered him the position of territory sales manager for the Pacific Northwest, based in Seattle. After transforming the Northwest region into Dexter’s top sales territory, Miller assumed the role of president of sales and marketing for the company and relocated back to Boston in 1985.
Under his tenure as president, the business grew to more than $250 million in revenue, with a base of wholesale customers around the world. Though he retired from Dexter in 1993 following its sale and reorganization, Miller continued to advise U.S. and international manufacturers, particularly in Hong Kong and China. He only fully retired at the age of 89.
According to his family, Miller will be remembered for “his dedication, integrity, professionalism, humor, and love for his family, as well as the many warm relationships he fostered in the footwear industry around the world.”
He is survived by his wife, Diane; sons Andrew (Gym), Thomas (Susie), Matthew (Julie) and Jonathan (Joy); grandchildren Benjamin, Sofia, Mya, Ari and Gabriel; former wife Vivian, and many dear cousins and friends.
