Miller Engineering’s principal engineers wrote the original books on warnings and instructions, have published in several other areas, have participated in product designs and patents, and have analyzed, reconstructed and/or animated numerous types of accidents. We are known for our staff’s thorough, detailed documentation and portrayal of accident sequences and the surrounding environmental circumstances.
There are four PhD and registered Professional Engineers at Miller Engineering who are celebrating 40 years of Professorships at three universities along with providing services to Government, Insurance, and Industry - through research, publications, presentations, and expert testimony. These co-founders and associates are James M. Miller, PE, PhD; Mark R. Lehto, PhD; David R. Clark, PE, PhD; Adam M. Olshove, PE, MSE; and Jeffrey D. Rupp, MSE. Miller Engineering has a dedicated office with a full-time staff of engineers, researchers, and technical writers. The span of our collective academic and experiential expertise includes the Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Agricultural, Industrial, Human Factors, Ergonomic and Safety fields of engineering.
Miller Engineering also designs and operates hydroelectric and solar energy sources within their agricultural, forestry, marine, and cattle subsidiary operations in Idaho and Oregon, lending to unique hand-on expertise in these areas.
Dr. James Miller, PE—Founder of Miller Engineering and Emeritus Professor at the University of Michigan – Engineering. He has directly served in Washington originating several Federal OSHA safety regulations, and interacts regularly with Consumer Products Safety Commission regarding safety and product recalls. He serves as a reviewer of ASTM consumer products safety standards, provides upper management guidance on product design, recall and liability issues, and serves as an expert witness when required by consultative involvements.
In addition, Dr. Miller works often on projects relating to compliance with occupational safety and consumer safety standards (OSHA, MSDS, CPSC, ANSI, ASTM, UL, ASABE, etc.) along with accidents associated with agriculture, consumer products, machine guarding, fire/explosions, and slip and fall circumstances. Recently, Dr. Miller has been handling cases involving battery fires, particularly with respect to e-cigarettes and vaporizers.
Dr. Miller holds a bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering from Ohio State University. At the University of Michigan, he taught courses in human factors/ergonomics, safety engineering, methods engineering and law for engineers. On leave from the University at the U.S. Department of Labor, he was appointed as Special Assistant for Safety to OSHA’s Assistant Secretary of Labor, where he had responsibility, among other things, for revising the OSHA Safety Standards (29 CFR 1910 and 1926).
Dr. Miller has authored a chapter titled "Hazard Communication and Right-to-Know: Regulatory Issues" in the Safety Engineering Handbook for ASSE. He has also authored five books on the topics of “warnings and safety instructions” and dozens of journal articles. He is currently a committee member of the ASTM Technical Committee F15 on Consumer Products.
Finally, Dr. Miller is a registered professional engineer and consultant with over 35 years of experience including expert witness work. He specializes in warnings, labeling, and instruction manuals, consumer product design, process safety, explosions, fire science, chemical hazards (diacetyl, asbestos, benzene, etc.), machine guarding, vehicle visibility, systems for egress/ingress, slip and fall prevention, recreational vehicles (ATVs, boats, and personal watercraft), and all agricultural operations.
Affiliations: American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), American Chemical Society (ACS), American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), and American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Dr. Mark Lehto—Co-Founder and Professor at Purdue University. He completed his Ph.D. in engineering at the University of Michigan, where he specialized in human factors engineering, in particular warnings and labeling, which was also the topic of his dissertation and first book, Warnings: Fundamentals, Design and Evaluation Methodologies, Vol. 1. He teaches courses at Purdue in human and safety factors areas, as well as decision making and artificial intelligence. He has authored numerous professionally-reviewed articles, and he has authored / coauthored internationally-recognized textbooks in the areas of human factors and ergonomics, including his latest textbook Introduction to Human Factors and Ergonomics for Engineers. His current research often involves collecting data in the usability of consumer products and human computer / machine interactions in relation to safety. Dr. Lehto also holds patents in the automotive area in relation to occupant restraint systems. In addition, his early experience in commercial agriculture and fishing qualifies him to research and analyze agricultural, recreation, vehicle, and marine accidents.
Special Expertise: Knowledge engineering, warnings and instructions, structuring expert systems, accident modeling, accident statistical analysis, consumer product safety, boating safety, in-field national surveys of product usage and product information effectiveness, automotive occupant restraint systems
Affiliations: American Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), Alpha Pi Mu (Industrial Engineering Honor Society).
Dr. David Clark, PE—Co-Founder and Emeritus Engineering Professor at Kettering University. He was an engineering masters and Ph.D. graduate from the University of Michigan, where he specialized in human factors engineering and system safety analyses. In particular, his earlier degrees in mechanical and electrical areas have given him a special expertise in electrical fire- and explosion-related accidents. Dr. Clark is also published on the topics of warnings and labeling. With considerable in-plant experience at General Motors, he is uniquely qualified to deal with many types of in-plant mechanical and optimization projects. Finally, he has extensive experience working for loss control companies, performing over 150 fire origin and cause investigations in the past few years.
Affiliations: American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE); Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES); National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, Fundamentals of Engineering (FE)
Adam Olshove, PE, MSE—Managing Engineering. Adam is a registered mechanical professional engineer with over 10 years of experience providing consulting services to industry and the legal profession. Adam holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on control systems and battery modeling (2019), and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (2012), both from the University of Michigan.
His projects at Miller Engineering have focused on the analysis of consumer product design and commercial accidents. He has performed dozens of on-site investigations nationwide in relation to these projects, including failure analysis and testing. Adam has also evaluated and designed numerous warning labels, as well as developed instruction manuals for novel products.
Recently, Adam has been involved in the evaluation, design, and testing of batteries including Lithium Ion (Li-ion) and Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH), particularly those used in e-cigarettes, vapes, medical devices, and electric vehicles.
His past professional experience includes product development on the pressure sensor team at Caterpillar, Inc., and implementation of energy saving solutions at Rhetech, Inc., a plastic resin manufacturing company. As an undergraduate, he conducted research at the University of Michigan’s Composite Structures Lab under the supervision of the Aerospace Engineering Department Chair, Dr. Tony Waas.
Affiliations: American Society of Mechanical Engineers; National Society of Professional Engineers; American Society for Testing & Materials; American Society of Safety Professionals
Jeffrey Rupp, MSE—Engineering Associate. Jeff has a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and a MS in systems engineering and engineering management from Wayne State University. Among his company affiliates is 26 years with Ford Motor Company and Volvo Car Corporation, where he was involved in crash development and crash sensing calibrations. He also developed the first single camera, side pre-crash activated, airbag system and test methodology. While at Ford and Volvo Jeff also established and led the first organizational unit dedicated to active safety research and development, leading a team of 75 staff members. He developed corporate Automated Driving technology strategies, along with three generations of accident avoidance and driver support technology. He executed the first robotic pedestrian collision avoidance system in combination with building two generations of fully autonomous vehicles.
Jeff’s work at these companies has resulted in him being awarded 24 patents in the areas of safety and vehicular autonomy, including an adaptive cruise control system, a single vision sensor object detection system, and a universal seat-mounted airbag. Jeff is a member of the SAE’s On-Road Autonomous Vehicle Standards Committee. He has participated in the analysis and revision of FMVSS regulations for highly automated vehicles.
Finally, Jeff has authored several well-recognized publications on topics such as electronic active safety technologies, autonomous driving, side crash pressure sensor prediction, and steering wheel and column assembly for frontal and side impact simulations. Out of the staff members at Miller Engineering, Jeff is the person with the most experiential and productive exposures to the area of highly sophisticated autonomous electric vehicle safety systems.
