Mills' contributions to software engineering have had a profound and enduring effect on education and industrial practice.
As an IBM research fellow, Mills adapted existing ideas from engineering and computer science to software development.
This award is given to an individual who has demonstrated a long-standing and meaningful contribution to both the theory and practice of the information sciences.
At FIT, he developed a new freshman and sophomore curriculum for software engineering using Ada as the underlying language with colleagues Engle and Newman.
Mills had an abiding interest in fostering sound software engineering practices through federal programs.
In 1986, he served as Chairman of the Computer Science Panel for the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.
Mills was a program committee member and invited speaker for many professional conferences, and a referee for many mathematics and computer science journals.