Miller (Mike) Johnson

Miller (Mike) Johnson, age 81, a resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico, passed away on Sunday, August 16, 2015. Mr. Johnson was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He is survived by his wife Marilyn; his daughter, Andrea Kathleen Jones and her husband Paul; granddaughters, Michelle, Amber; great-grandson Stevie of McKinney, TX and grandson Matthew of Plano, TX. He is also survived by his brother, Stanley; his niece Joy and her two daughters; his niece Nancy Hoppenstedt and her husband George and their three children all of Evansville, Indiana. Miller leaves many cherished friends, among them extra special dear friends, Marge and Norman Luckenback of McKinney, TX. Miller was a graduate of Art Center School in Los Angeles (now Art Center College in Pasadena, CA) where he majored in transportation/industrial design. He worked at Ford, Chrysler and American Motors in Michigan designing cars. Some renderings of concept cars he did at American Motors in the 60’s appeared in the Collectible Automobile magazine in 2013 and 2015. One of the most fun projects he did at AMC was the design of the Gremlin logo. After he moved to California in the early 70’s, Miller joined the Toy design company, Innova in Playa del Rey. Miller was a skilled photographer along with doing free-lance design projects for a number of companies. Miller truly enjoyed his opportunity to share a studio-shop with Edgar Schmued, the renowned designer of the P-51 Mustang fighter plane of WWII. The last ten years before he retired in 1992, he worked at Mattel Toy Company in the Hot Wheels department. Among other projects he worked on, Miller designed Hot Wheels playsets. At all the workplaces, he was known to have keen/wry sense of humor and was famous for his caricatures of his co-workers. Miller was truly multifaceted – designed automobiles, murals, caricatures, magazine covers, birthday and other special occasion cards. He designed a miniature golf course and his retirement house in Albuquerque. His interests included airplanes, macrophotography, extraterrestrials, auras, mystics, spiritualists, meditation, Danish Modern furniture, swimming, sunbather, race cars. New Mexico was the perfect place to retire to follow his intense interest in extraterrestrials. He became one of the founding members of the Roswell UFO Museum. Among several exhibits he contributed, the large mural that was made from his original drawing still hangs in the museum today.