In Remembrance: Enterprise Founder Jack Taylor

Photo: Facebook.

Jack Taylor, founder of Enterprise Rent-A-Car and one of the world’s 250 richest people, passed away in St. Louis after a brief illness. He was 94.  

Taylor got his start when he founded Executive Leasing at a Cadillac dealership in St. Louis in 1957. It provided cars to people whose cars were being fixed after an accident and was one of the first that would allow people to pick up and drop off cars away from airports, and one of the first to offer rides to a customer’s home or office. The business started with just eight cars.  

In 1969, Taylor expanded outside of St. Louis for the first time, and changed the company’s name to Enterprise, after the World War II aircraft carrier on which he had served.  

In the decade from 1980 to 1989 Enterprise’s fleet grew from 6,000 to 50,000. In 2007, Taylor bought Alamo and National, two airport rental brands.  

“My father took a simple idea and created a great company,” his son, Andrew C. Taylor, said in the company statement.  

In 2016, the company had $19.4 billion in revenue and more than 1.7 million vehicles—twice the amount as Hertz and Avis.  

Taylor was well known for valuing employee happiness and customer service. Enterprise consistently ranked among the top 10 places to begin a career by Bloomberg Business Week and earned the top highest customer satisfaction marks for rental car companies in J.D. Power surveys.  

In 2008, Taylor told CNN that his business credo was always, “Take care of your customers and employees first, and profits will follow.”