Clifford A. Miller, executive vice president and...

Clifford A. Miller, executive vice president and a director of Great Western Financial Corp., will retire from the Beverly Hills thrift Dec. 31.

Miller oversaw communications and marketing at Great Western, the nation’s second-largest savings and loan holding company. Great Western’s principal unit is Great Western Bank.

Miller, who joined Great Western in 1987, is the former chairman of Braun and Co., now Braun/Ketchum, a public relations and business consulting firm in Los Angeles that was acquired in 1989 by Ketchum Communications.

Miller has also been a close adviser and confidant to Walt Disney Vice Chairman Roy E. Disney and an adviser to Roy Disney’s Shamrock Holdings investment firm in Burbank.