Getting To Know Dr. Richard Miller

Environmental Safety Technologies, Inc (EST) was founded by Dr. Richard Miller and co-founder Shauna Weis. For over 30 years EST has provided clients with top-of-the-line Legionella testing services on building water systems, for validating the control of Legionella proliferation in the building water in accordance with ANSI/ASHRAE Legionella Standard 188-2021 and the CDC Toolkit: Developing a Water Management Program to Reduce Legionella Growth and Spread in Buildings (2021).

In addition to Dr. Miller’s 30 years with EST, he has over 45 years of experience in working with Legionella. It all started with his research program at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in the fall of 1977, when the Legionnaires’ disease bacterium had only been recently isolated by CDC several months earlier, and it didn’t even have a name yet.   Once it was reported that the transmission of Legionnaires’ disease was from environmental aquatic habitats (replicating within free-living amoebae), Dr. Miller received personal training in Legionella environmental culture at the CDC from Legionella pioneers Dr. Jim Feeley and George Gorman.  Over those 40 years, Dr. Miller acquired experience via: 1) laboratory research, training graduate students and unraveling the physiology, metabolism, and pathogenesis of this bacterium,  2) Legionella testing of cooling towers, potable water, whirlpool spas and decorative fountains for growing list of clients, and finally,  3) teaching Legionnaires’ disease (and more than 30 other bacterial and fungal infectious diseases lecture topics) to the medical students at the University of Louisville.  With this experience, there is not much about Legionella or Legionnaires’ disease (or medical microbiology more broadly) that Dr. Richard Miller does not know something about.

Over that time period, Dr. Miller’s Legionella expertise was also put to use by ASHRAE, serving as a voting member on the ASHRAE Committee that developed the Legionella Guideline 12-2000.  Dr. Miller then followed that up with service as a voting member on the Legionella ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 188-2015 committee.

As a consequence of Dr. Miller’s broad microbiology knowledge and experience, this feature of the EST web site provides an opportunity for everyone to take advantage of that microbiological wisdom, to ask Dr. Miller questions that may cover a broad range of microbiology topics, including Legionella and Legionnaires’ disease, of course.   In addition to all other infectious diseases (especially those that are water-borne diseases), Dr. Richard Miller has knowledge of and has given lectures on, biofilm formation and biofouling processes, microbial-induced corrosion, biofouling detection, and control.

Dr. Miller has a passion for teaching and loves answering your questions about Legionella. His passion for teaching and thorough understanding of infectious disease microbiology can be seen in the many awards Dr. Miller has received over the years.  You can see some of those accomplishments listed below from students, faculty and the Dean’s office at of the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.