Jack Taylor
Jack Taylor was born in St. Louis and lived there for most of his early years. He attended Washington University and Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri before enlisting in the army right after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He piloted F6F Hellcat fighters in the Pacific Theater and was decorated twice with the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also received the Navy Air Medal.
When he came home after the war, Taylor established and operated a package delivery business, he moved on selling Cadillacs. In 1957, Jack Taylor started Executive Leasing, and after five years started to cars as a service for his auto leasing clients. His innovation was to provide car leasing services to customers other than people arriving at airports. He chose to focus his efforts on homeowners who had cars that were out of service. By 1989, his very successful business venture had become Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
By 2004, owing to his success and the competing companies that soon followed his path, the local rental market segment grew bigger than the airport rental industry. Today, he has a net worth of $14 billion and is ranked by Forbes as the 37th richest person in the world.
Balancing business with philanthropy, Taylor founded the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation in 1982. The company’s charitable arm has made more than $10 million in donations annually, chiefly to non-profit organizations in the local communities where their employees work and reside. $25 million was given to establish the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Scholars Program at Washington University to aid scholarships for minority and financially-challenged students
Other Philanthropic Activities
- Jack Taylor gave a $40 million gift to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra that served to bolster its endowment fund.
- He donated $30 million to the Missouri Botanical Garden to fund global plant research.
- To inaugurate the National Flight Academy at the National Museum of Naval Aviation, Taylor gave $10 million.
- He also pledged $5 million to support long-term preservation of historic Forest Park, home of the 1904 World’s Fair and Olympic Games.
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