Center for Families

Joyce Beery Miles of Maggie Valley, North Carolina, is president of her consulting and training company, Joyce B. Miles and Associates: A Leadership Development Group. She is a Purdue Consumer and Family Sciences (CFS) alumna, earning a bachelor's degree in 1965, and received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1993.

Miles retired after 31 years from the Duval County schools in Jacksonville, Florida, where she was the supervisor for Family and Consumer Sciences and coordinator for the Blueprint for Career Preparation. Today, her company provides training and technical support in the areas of employability skills, job-search techniques, building leadership capacity, and community mobilization action planning based on recent brain research for volunteers in nonprofit organizations, educators, and industry leaders. She has presented these topics to more than 5,000 attendees in local, state, and national audiences.

Speaking to national audiences about networking and collaboration and becoming an advocate for children and families is also important to Miles. Her presentations on building leadership capacity are highly sought after as she travels as a former American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) board member. She has organized and presented at major international leadership training conferences for AAFCS. She has also co-authored a family and consumer sciences textbook, with adoption in Florida and numerous other states.

She currently serves on the AAFCS accreditation council and the development committee, co-chairing the Centennial Fundraising Campaign. She actively works for women and philanthropy issues at Florida State University, Purdue University, and the University of Georgia. She serves on the Women of Purdue steering committee designed to advance women in the spirit of giving. She's also on the Purdue President’s Council advisory board, as well as the Florida State University Foundation board of trustees.

Miles has received numerous awards for her leadership, as well as public service. In June 1999, she received the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Duval County Cooperative Extension. In June 2005, she received the prestigious Leaders Award from the AAFCS.

In preparation for the AAFCS Centennial Celebration, Miles has committed many hours researching the founder of home economics, Ellen Swallow Richards. Miles has produced a DVD on Richards’ life and legacy and travels throughout the country and internationally portraying Richards in her own words.