Meet Laura Miller: Founder & CEO of TempDev

How TempDev Got Its Start

TempDev’s story really starts a little before TempDev existed. In 2006, Laura Miller was living in the San Francisco Bay Area and working as a NextGen Application Specialist at Mills Peninsula Medical Group. She had a degree in computer engineering from University of California Santa Cruz and had found her way into healthcare technology, where she quickly realized how much opportunity there was to make systems work better for the people using them every day.

Working directly with physicians and staff, Laura spent her time solving problems. Sometimes that meant improving a workflow or figuring out why something wasn’t working the way it should. Other times it meant building a better template, finding a smarter way to use data, or helping a practice get more out of technology it already had. She loved the mix of technical problem-solving and working closely with people, and she started to see that there was a real need for consultants who understood both sides.

So, at 25 years old, Laura decided to start her own company and on July 7, 2007, TempDev officially began.

There wasn’t a giant business plan, a round of funding, or a carefully mapped-out path to becoming a CEO. TempDev started much more simply: Laura knew she was good at solving healthcare technology problems, loved the work, and believed she could build a company around doing it well.

What started with Laura consulting on her own gradually grew through referrals, relationships, and a reputation for being willing to dig into the complicated problems other people couldn’t quite figure out. Over time, one consultant became a team, the projects became bigger, and TempDev expanded far beyond its early NextGen work.

Nearly 20 years later, a lot has changed. TempDev now works with healthcare organizations across the country on everything from EHR and practice management optimization to revenue cycle, data, development, project management, and strategic consulting. But the idea at the center of the company is still remarkably close to where it started: understand the problem, find a smarter way to solve it, and make technology work better for the people who depend on it.

From Engineer to CEO

Even as TempDev grew, Laura never really lost the part of the job she loved most: figuring things out.

Her background as a computer engineer shaped the way she approached NextGen from the beginning. She was always curious about what was happening behind the screen, how the pieces fit together, and whether there was a better way to make something work. That curiosity became a big part of TempDev’s culture. When a client comes to the team asking for a specific solution, Laura’s instinct is often to look one step further: What are they actually trying to accomplish, and is there a better way to get there? The need can easily get buried inside the ask, and some of TempDev’s best solutions have come from stepping back and solving the underlying problem differently.

That mindset has stayed with Laura throughout her career. She still loves a complicated problem and is happiest when there is something new to learn, untangle, or improve. But as TempDev grew, the bigger challenge became building a team that approached problems with that same curiosity.

Building a Team That Stays

Over the years, Laura has built a team of people who bring that same curiosity to their work, whether they are analyzing a clinical workflow, managing a large project, improving a revenue cycle process, developing a custom solution, or helping a client make better use of NextGen.

Many members of the team have been with TempDev for more than a decade, growing into new roles as the company itself evolved. That longevity has created a depth of knowledge that is difficult to replicate. The team knows NextGen, but they also understand healthcare operations, the history behind why workflows were built a certain way, and what tends to work in the real world.

Laura has always believed that people do their best work when they are trusted to be good at what they do. That means giving people room to make decisions, encouraging them to question the obvious answer, and creating opportunities to grow rather than expecting everyone to follow the same career path.

It also means recognizing that work is only one part of someone's life. TempDev was remote long before remote work became cool, and Laura has continued to build the company around flexibility, autonomy, and the idea that great work shouldn't require people to organize their entire lives around their jobs.

For Laura, growing TempDev was never really about becoming the person with all the answers. It was about creating a company full of smart, thoughtful people who know how to find them, and building a place where they want to stay.

Learning to Lead Differently

Laura started TempDev at 25 and spent the early years involved in nearly every part of the company. As TempDev grew, so did her idea of what good leadership looked like.

Today, she spends more time thinking about where the company is headed, what TempDev should build next, and how healthcare organizations' needs are changing. But she still likes to dabble in client work from time to time. She’ll jump into a NextGen problem, get involved in a project, or spend time in the system simply because she wants to stay close to the work.That hands-on connection helps her stay current on how NextGen is evolving, what clients are actually experiencing, and where TempDev should be paying attention.

That may be a little unusual for a CEO nearly 20 years into running a company, but Laura has never been particularly interested in becoming disconnected from the work that started TempDev in the first place. She doesn't need to solve every problem anymore. She still wants to understand them.

Still Curious About What Comes Next

One thing that hasn’t changed much since the early days of TempDev is Laura’s curiosity. Healthcare technology never really stands still, and neither does the way organizations need to use it.

That constant change is part of what keeps the work interesting. Laura is always looking at what could work better, what new technology might make possible, and where healthcare organizations are still doing things the hard way simply because no one has stopped to rethink them.

She is especially drawn to the space where technology, operations, and real-world workflow meet. New tools are exciting, but Laura is much more interested in whether they actually solve a meaningful problem. That same thinking influences the services TempDev develops, the products the team builds, and the ideas the company chooses to pursue.

After almost two decades in healthcare IT, Laura still gets excited about finding a better way to do something. The technology may change, but that part probably won’t.

Life Outside TempDev

Laura's life outside TempDev has changed quite a bit over the years too. She spent about a decade in Silicon Valley, another decade in Miami, and now calls Asheville, North Carolina home. Each place has been a very different chapter, but these days she is happiest with a little more space, mountains nearby, and plenty of reasons to be outside.

She loves cooking, gardening, spending time in the mountains, and getting back to the ocean whenever she can. Travel is still a big part of her life, whether that means exploring somewhere completely new or returning to places she loves. Art has stayed with her too, along with a love of beautiful spaces, interesting design, and anything with a slightly whimsical or ethereal quality.

At home, there is no shortage of creatures. Laura is a devoted cat lady and also keeps a fancy goldfish aquarium, which has become its own small world of filters, water chemistry, and surprisingly strong fish personalities. Lately, she has also started exploring mushroom cultivation, another hobby that sits somewhere between gardening, science experiment, and curiosity project.

Most importantly, life outside work revolves around being a mom and spending time with the people she loves. After many years of building a company and treating work as a very large part of her identity, Laura has become much more intentional about making room for the rest of life too.

These days, a good weekend might mean cooking something from the garden, working on a new planting project, wandering through an art museum, fussing over the aquarium, heading into the mountains, or dreaming up the next adventure. There is usually another trip, trail, beach, or slightly unusual idea somewhere on the horizon.

Follow Laura on LinkedIn to keep up with what she’s thinking about, building, learning, and occasionally overanalyzing, from healthcare technology and leadership to the next adventure.