Piller

Michael Piller was co-creator/executive producer of Star Trek: Voyager; co-creator/creative consultant of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; and served as executive producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

With Piller and Executive Producer Rick Berman at the helm of the series, Star Trek: The Next Generation became the first syndicated series in this decade to receive an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama. Also, under the supervision of Piller and Executive Producer/Creator Rick Berman, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine set ratings history when it became the highest-rated series premiere in syndication history.

An Emmy Award-winning journalist, Piller began his broadcasting career with CBS News in New York. He subsequently served as managing editor of the WBTV-TV News in Charlotte, North Carolina, and senior news producer at WBBM-TV, the CBS affiliate in Chicago.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his first position in entertainment television was as a censor in the CBS docudrama unit. Piller then spent two years as a programming executive before leaving CBS to write full-time.

Piller's credits as a writer-producer included the series Simon & Simon, Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice, Probe and Hard Time on Planet Earth. In addition, he co-created and executive produced the syndicated series Group One Medical and the United Paramount Network series Legend. Piller's last projects were a long-running TV adaptation of "Stephen King's The Dead Zone" and the series Wildfire, which co-starred Nana Visitor of Deep Space Nine.

Michael Piller passed away November 1, 2005, after a long battle with cancer. He was 57.