Brendan A. Miller
Brendan is currently working as professional full-stack web developer, CTO and entrepreneur focusing on open source, decentralized solutions that advance global democracy, justice and wise social self-organization for all.
Previously, he served as the Director of the Office of Science, Technology and Energy and as Green Economy Manager for the New Mexico Economic Development Department. Brendan was the primary staff researcher and writer for the reports New Mexico’s Green Economy: Capitalizing on Assets and Opportunities and Growing New Mexico’s Clean Tech Economy: Strategies to Strengthen Technology Commercialization.
Brendan has been a researcher, trainer and consultant in adaptive and facilitative leadership, group decision making, systems dynamics, organizational development and democratic process for non-profit and for-profit clients.
He served for two years in AmeriCorps, the “domestic Peace Corps,” and supported Peter Frumkin with research for his book Serving Country and Community: Who Benefits from National Service?
Brendan has worked as a project manager for community-oriented real estate development projects. He worked with Chris Scott-Hansen and Stew Mayer on the Sawyer Hill Eco-Village in Berlin, MA and with Sean Gilligan on Plaza Contenta, a mixed-use village center, in Santa Fe, NM.
Brendan has degrees from MIT Sloan (MBA), the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA) – where he was a Public Service Fellow – and Brown University (Sc.B. in Math-Computer Science with Honors, Magna Cum Laude).
Brendan has always been interested in spirituality and mysticism from a empirical and practical perspective – exploring practices from the worlds religious like Hinduism (breathwork, yoga and tantra), Buddhism (meditation), Shamanism (altered states of consciousness and the multiverse), Sufism (moving meditations) to see “what works” and helps to navigate one’s life and experience. He was raised Catholic (he has an uncle who is Augustinian priest and an aunt who is a Marist Missionary Sister), but fell away from its dogma, hierarchy and hypocrisy as a teenager. He nonetheless continues to appreciate many of the core values of love and service in Catholicism and Christianity.
When he was 34 Brendan badly herniated a disc in his neck. This injury has turned into a kind of blessing: choosing the route of physical therapy rather than surgery has led to a deep physical awareness and appreciation for the powers of self-healing and the wisdom of the body. Surprisingly, this opened the door to dance as a vehicle not just for joy and creative expression but also physical, social and emotional healing. He turned first to ecstatic dance with teachers like Jo Cobbet, Michael Molin-Skelton, Kate Shela, and Lucia Horan. The co-creative nature of contact improvisation attracted him next. After about 5 years he finally felt called to take instructional classes in hip-hop, modern and house styles to increase his movement vocabulary for the improvisation that is still his primary passion. Brendan will be dancing for the rest of his life.
Brendan is originally from Cranbury, NJ and now lives happily and gratefully with his wife and collaborator Ziri Rideaux in wild, creative Venice Beach, CA.