Multi-billionaire Enterprise Rent-A-Car founder Jack Taylor dies aged ninety four after a brief illness
By Hannah Parry For Dailymail.com 14:47 BST three Jul 2016, updated 16:11 BST three Jul two thousand sixteen
- Jack Taylor set up Enterprise Rent-A-Car in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957
- Company was named after aircraft carrier the WWII veteran flew from
- Business founded with seven cars grew to billion dollar revenues by ’90s
- Taylor’s estimated wealth was $Five.3bn and he’s248 on the Forbes rich list
- But more than his wealth, Taylor dreamed to be remembered as ‘a nice man’
- The 94-year-old entrepreneur passed away on Saturday after a brief illness
Multi-billionaire Jack Taylor, who made his fortune after founding Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the 1950s, has died aged 94.
Taylor, who launched the company in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957, passed away on Saturday after a brief illness.
This year, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $Five.Trio billion and listed him in the top two hundred fifty richest people in the world.
But more than anything else, Taylor simply desired to be remembered as ‘a nice man.’
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‘"Taylor was a nice fellow." I like that,’ he said in an interview, footage of which has been posted as part of a movie tribute.
‘I want everybody to be glad, it’s unlikely but I’d like for that to happen.’
The 2nd World War veteran, who named his business after the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, said when he left the Navy, he wished to set up a company which focused on good customer service.
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‘I had no thoughts about being the largest, I just wished to be the best,’ he said.
‘When I began Enterprise I just desired the customer when the walked out the door, to say "God, that’s a nice stud and that’s a nice place to do business.
‘Being rich wasn’t that much of a motivator.’
The outlook inspired his business ethos: ‘Take care of your customers and employees very first, and profits will go after.’
And the profits did just that. After founding the hard with just a handful of cars and one employee, the company grew into a billion dollar rock-hard while Taylor was listed as being the 248th richest person in the world this year.
‘My father took a elementary idea and created a excellent company,’ his son, Andrew C. Taylor, the company’s current executive chairman, said in a statement.
Taylor, who studied at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in 1940, enlisted in the Navy during the 2nd World War where he piloted an F6F Hellcat fighter from the decks of the USS Essex and the USS Enterprise, earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Navy Air Medal.
Not a natural student, he often joked that the war had ‘saved’ him from further education.
After returning home, he went onto take a salesman job at the Lindburg Cadillac dealership. By 1957, he founded a car leasing company with the dealership possessor, Arthur Lindburg.
Kicking off out with just seven cars, the business rented to customers whose own vehicles were in the shop.
Eventually the business grew into Enterprise, which differed from competitors by permitting people to pick up and drop off cars away from airports.
By 1980, the rental fleet had expanded to 6,000 cars, and less than a decade after that, it had grown to 50,000. In 1995, Enterprise Rent-A-Car was making $Two billion in revenues.
Yet Taylor’s very first concern was always happiness over money, both for himself and his customers.
‘I said to myself, "You are going to be glad everyday of your life because you are here, while many of your friends are not."’
Enterprise bought the Alamo and National brands in two thousand seven to strengthen its position in airports -Enterprise itself had begun operating at airports in 1995.
The privately held company switched its name to Enterprise Holdings Inc. in 2009.
Enterprise says that it had $Nineteen.Four billion in revenue and more than 1.7 million vehicles in 2015, making it more than twice the size of each of its two main U.S. competitors, Hertz and Avis.
It also sells cars and trucks and operates worldwide, with more than 90,000 employees in seventy countries. Taylor retired as CEO in one thousand nine hundred ninety one and as the company’s executive chairman in 2013.
Taylor’s two children, who he had with ex-wife Mary Ann Taylor, both came to join him in the running of the company.
Andrew became executive chairman of Enterprise, while Jo Ann Taylor runs the Taylor family philanthropic activities.
Taylor, who described his children as ‘terrific kids’ said they company would not exist as it were today if not for his son.
While his daughter’s running of the foundation had given him lots of satisfaction and permitted him to share some of his good fortune.
‘My life has just been a wonderful, American, fortunate boy practice,’ he said in the movie.
‘I have had a beautiful life; healthwise, moneywise, familywise, kidwise. It’s almost too good to be true.
‘I’ve just got more money than I need and I think there are people our there that don’t have as much as they to have for a reasonably glad life.
‘And I would like to give them some of mine.’
The company said that since one thousand nine hundred eighty two Taylor had donated more than $860 million to organizations including Washington University in St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Jo Ann Taylor praised her father as a ‘forward thinking dude’ and a ‘fair thinking individual’ over his generous donations over the year while his son Andrew added: ‘It was a indeed terrific thing that he did.’
The company said there will be a private funeral service.
The Taylor family requests that memorial donations be made to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Forest Park Forever, or the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
