For many Arvada residents, Karen Miller has been the champion of a number of causes related to preserving the city’s charm and historic identity. To some powerful stakeholders within the city, Miller’s advocacy has made her a consistent thorn in their side. Regardless, Miller now bears one appellation above all: Woman of the Year.

Since getting a foothold in the community in 2007 with her purchase of pet store Paws and Play with Laura Wrede, Miller’s impact in Arvada — specifically in Olde Town and within the city’s business community — has been wide-ranging.

Miller was elected to the Historic Olde Town Arvada board in 2010 and became the organization’s president in 2011. After Arvada defunded HOTA in 2012, Miller helped form the city’s Olde Town Business Improvement District in 2014.

In 2017, Miller joined the Arvada Historical Society Board and served as the organization’s president for a two-year term from 2021 to 2023.

Miller sold Paws and Play in 2017 but has remained a fixture in the community. To this day, she remains on the HOTA board, the Friends of the .04 Trolley board, the Association of Northern Front Range Museums board and continues to serve on the Historical Society’s board.

“There’s always a need and I like to create,” Miller said of what draws her to nonprofit work. “I always consider myself to be a transitional person. I’ll take what’s broke and try to fix it or make it better and give it to the next person. That’s what I tried to do with HOTA by creating the BID and I think that’s what I did with the Historical Society and (Current President) Judith (Denham) will continue.

“We’re all just running legs of a relay race, so you try to make up time for the next person,” Miller continued.

Before becoming a business owner in the community, Miller — a Lakewood resident — was mostly unfamiliar with Arvada. It was the tight-knit feel of the city, especially in Olde Town, that hooked her.

“When we came in 2007, it was more of a community,” Miller said. “Of course, it wasn’t as busy and it was still more hobby-type businesses, rather than, you know, ‘I’m building my empire’ type businesses. And it was more women (business owners) than men. And, you know, we called it Mayberry. We just cared about each other.”

But Miller’s time in Arvada hasn’t all been smooth sailing. In addition to widespread growth and changing demographics, Miller’s been entangled in “petty politics” with the City of Arvada on more than one occasion.

The first such incident occurred when HOTA was defunded by the city. Many expected the organization to fold, but Miller was unwilling to give in. She went to a city council meeting with fellow business owner Lori Drienka and told stakeholders she had no plans to back down.

“We spoke at city council and said, ‘HOTA’s not dead, we’re not throwing in the towel just because you took our money away,’” Miller said. “And we intend to continue as long as merchants want something going on down here.

“And I got up and spoke and I said, ‘I’m going to work on getting us a business improvement district,’” Miller continued.

Two previous attempts to form a BID in Olde Town had failed by the time Miller made her attempt. One previous attempt had ended in a lengthy court battle, and Miller said the city was reticent to try again.

Drienka, who worked with Miller to create the organization, credited Miller’s honesty for finally getting the historic district a successful BID.

“The BID being formed, I believe, is all to Karen’s credit, because there had been several attempts in the past to get that done, and Karen actually made it happen,” Drienka said. “I believe that her honesty and integrity and professionalism is what has bettered this community.

“And although the world may not be ready for her kind of honesty, I believe it’s important to be able to move things forward,” Drienka continued.

After things with the BID and HOTA settled down a little bit, Miller changed gears and began working with the Arvada Historical Society at the recommendation of her friend Nancy Young , one of Arvada’s foremost historians in her day.

Miller said that early days at the society were spent bettering the organization’s structure.

“The reason I joined this board was this society has always run kinda like a club; like a social club,” Miller said. “And Arvada, it was a very small town, when (the society’s members) grew up. And it’s like, you still have to run it like a business. I said, ‘Well, if you run the organization better, you can do history better. History is your product.’

“But you have to have a good organization,” Miller continued. “So, we just kind of quietly tried to change things and turn things around. Nancy was my other half. And we worked really hard to try to get things turned around.”

Miller oversaw a number of projects during her time as president of the Historical Society — she served a two-year term in that role, as is customary within the organization. For the organization’s 50th anniversary, Miller worked to get city council recognitions , stories in the Press, and a social media footprint that all contributed to raising the society’s profile in town.

The organization gained 60 new members in 2022.

Then Young passed away that November. Miller’s responsibilities within the organization grew, and soon it became time for a new president to take the reins. Denham assumed the role but credits Miler for getting the organization on stable footing.

“Karen has been very steadfast and very businesslike and very knowledgeable about how to hold that organization together, and to solve the problems that were occurring at that time,” Denham said. “Since I’ve been on the board for a couple of years, she has helped guide us to a more stable situation, a situation where we can look at our long term perspective where we can do some strategic planning, where we can build a board that’s a governance board with operations that really serve the community to get our mission out there.”

Miller is now the manager of the Arvada Flour Mill and spent a year cleaning up the mill so that it could be suitable for school tours once more. Now, she’s working with an advisory committee to put together a master plan for the mill that will bring myriad of changes to the historic site, including having the capacity to host events.

Miller said that what draws her to historic preservation work is the importance of history to the Arvada community.

“This is definitely a unique place,” Miller said. “Now being in the Historical Society board, the history is so important to this community. It might sound like an old lady talking about things, but the history is inside this community. it is the personality of this community is driven by it, how we act, the protests; it’s all repetitive from day one.

“And the history here is the charm that makes Arvada special,” she continued.

However, turnover in the business community, on the city team, on city council, and in other areas have measurably changed things in Arvada, Miller asserted.

“If you’re going to keep tearing down houses and putting up ugly buildings, what’s going to happen?” Miller asked rhetorically.

Miller called the creation of the BID her proudest accomplishment but noted that she still works to put on the longtime community-oriented events the BID dropped due to financial concerns through HOTA, including the Scarecrow Festival, A Chocolate Affair and Lagniappe.

“(The creation of the BID) that would probably be recognized as my biggest accomplishment,” Miller said. Because it was thought that it could never be done. And (the city team members) were afraid to try.”

Miller does not seem to fear losing — though her remarkable persistence and honesty have kept her on the winning side of the ledger more times than not.

“I always, always favored the underdog,” Miller said.

In picking Miller for Woman of the Year, the Chamber of Commerce proved it’s willing to do the same.