Jack Miller is retiring as president of office supplies cataloger Quill Corp. on Jan. 31.
He’s being replaced by Lawrence J. Morse who moves up from senior vice president of operations for Quill and will report to Ronald L. Sargent, president/CEO of Staples Inc., which bought Quill in 1998 for $683 million. Miller will continue to serve as a consultant to Staples.
Jack Miller started up the Quill catalog in 1956 in the back room of his father’s chicken store. Joined by his two brothers, Miller led the growth of Quill over four decades as it became the largest independent direct marketer of business-to-business office supplies, through mail-order catalogs.
During that time, Miller became very active in industry affairs. In 1992, Quill spent about $750,000 of its own money in legal fees to help uphold the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1967 National Bellas-Hess decision. That decision held that direct marketers are not obligated to pay local taxes in states into which they mail if they have no physical presence there.
In addition, he helped lead the fight to get the U.S. government to develop more precise Standard Industrial Classification codes for business-to-business mailers to use.
Morse, a 12-year Quill employee, has held several key management positions within the company and has played a key role in integrating the operations of the two companies.
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