The Big E.—the first USS Enterprise, an aircraft carrier as massive as the company she inspired. Today, Enterprise rents cars all over the world and even owns a chunk of China’s largest car service (photo courtesy of National Naval Aviation Museum).
We thought we’d just make a list of the Taylor family’s 2015 gifts (more than $114 million) and let it speak for itself. But the list was so long, your eyes would glaze over halfway through. Since their inception, the corporate foundation and the Crawford Taylor Foundation have given more than $418.5 million. (Crawford, by the way, is the maiden name of Jack Taylor’s mother.) Nonprofit recipients and media outlets like this one insist on trumpeting the public gifts, so the Taylors grit their teeth and issue a news release. But the family’s so reserved, they don’t even admit to all the anonymous gifts that fill urgent, unglamorous needs all over the region.
Suffice it to say, you’re a Taylor beneficiary. You’ve cooled off in the shade of one of their trees; dated somebody who went to school on one of their scholarships; adopted a dog they helped rescue from cruelty; met an abused woman they helped put her life back together. You’ve sipped a cold one on the deck of the Forest Park boathouse; taken a child to the Magic House; gone to world-class opera in Webster Groves; read with relief about the new Wash. U. center formed to research better treatments for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and pain; watched news of a disaster halfway around the world without realizing the Taylors had already sent relief funds from St. Louis.
Not bad for a guy who left Wash. U. without sheepskin because he wanted to enlist in the Navy. Jack flew a Hellcat fighter from the decks of the USS Enterprise during World War II and came home decorated like a Christmas tree. He started a fleet of…seven cars.
Today, Enterprise commands the largest fleet of rental cars in the world. You can pick up a car in one of 8,500 locations in more than 70 countries and territories. The company’s known for hiring more entry-level college grads than any other American corporation. Last year it invested more than $78 million in China’s largest car service company. In 2013, it broke custom by making a woman its first non-Taylor CEO.
Jack’s son Andy, whom he once described as even “more earnest than I am,” is now executive chairman. Jack’s daughter, Jo Ann Taylor Kindle, runs the Enterprise Holdings foundation, and her daughter Carolyn is executive director. Andy’s daughter Chrissy Taylor is senior vice president of Enterprise’s North American operations. A third granddaughter, Ali Kindle Hogan, started the nonprofit resale shop Rung, philanthropy in stylish-but-practical action.
Taylor granddaughters serve on nonprofit boards around town. In their dating days, their grandpa kept a close eye on any prospective suitors. He’s keeping company with Barbara Bryant, a philanthropist herself. And his first wife, Mary Ann, married Des Lee, another man who gave away millions.
Forbes lists the Taylor family as “worth” $13 billion. St. Louis measures differently—every time we look around. Lesley Hoffarth, president and executive director of Forest Park Forever, says when she talks to family members, “it’s clear that they love the smaller, human elements of the organizations they support. I hear them tell stories about Jack and his brother visiting the old Boathouse as boys, or Andy and Jo Ann sledding down Art Hill on cookie sheets. They take a lot of joy in being able to invest so generously in institutions that matter to so many in these daily, small-scale ways. Add these moments up—across decades and an array of organizations—and you have a region truly transformed by their generosity.”
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