Miller Pontius - Business Career

Business Career

Pontius spent only one season as an assistant at Michigan and was involved in various business interests until his death in 1960. In August 1915, Pontius was connected with Paige Auto Co. of Detroit. In 1919, his hometown newspaper (the Circleville Herald) reported that Pontius had sailed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to enter business.

In 1922, Pontius was working with the foreign department of the Home Insurance Company. That same year, he married Mildred Carrington Taylor of Port Huron, Michigan, with whom he had a son David Pontius. They married after Pontius received sudden orders to sail for Central America. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, newspaper accounts indicate that Pontius was living in Evanston, Illinois.

By 1934, Pontius had moved to Bronxville, New York. He worked as an investment banker in New York City. In 1937, he was a vice president of G.L. Ohrstrom & Co., Inc., an investment banking, brokerage and real estate development firm founded by fellow University of Michigan alumnus, George L. Ohrstrom.

In 1938, Pontius was elected vice president of the Touchdown Club in New York City. Also, in 1938, Pontius was the "toastmaster" at a Michigan Alumni Club dinner in New York in honor of Michigan's new football coach Fritz Crisler. Pontius spoke of "the return of Michigan to its former high estate in the game."

Pontius later became a partner with the prominent Wall Street investment banking firm, F. Eberstadt and Co., where he worked until his death in 1960. Pontius died November 7, 1960 at Presbyterian Hospital in New York at age 69.