“The intellectual stimulation I received at Union continues as a love of reading and a quest for knowledge,” says James W. Taylor '66, appointed a Union Trustee in fall 2004. “As Trustee, my areas of interest are containing costs and enhancing the quality of student life.”
Active in business, philanthropy and automobile collecting, Taylor earned his B.S. in psychology and later took an executive course at Harvard Business School to study family business management. He is a former member of the Trustee Board of Advisors (1997-2000) and of the Terrace Council Membership Committee.
He is the first Trustee among a large Taylor family of College alumni. His brother and partner in The Taylor Made Group is John Taylor '74 – with whom he has given the $1.5 million lead gift for Union's new music facility (see related story). His late father, Willard H. Taylor '42, endowed one of the College's largest scholarship funds, and his nephew, Bryan Taylor '08, keeps him up-to-date on College goings-on.
As president and CEO of the Gloversville, N.Y.-based Taylor Made Group, one of the boating industry's largest manufacturers and suppliers, Taylor has held many of the industry's top board posts.
He is on the board of the Graduate College of Union University and is involved in a range of community philanthropic activities, from Boy Scouts, YMCA and United Way to WMHT Public Television and several health, drug treatment and hospital foundations. He is also a member of the board of the Double H Hole in the Woods Ranch, a Paul Newman camp for children with chronic illnesses.
A collector of more than two dozen autos, he also takes his passion for cars on the road. In 2002, he and a colleague outfitted a 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche and headed for Rio de Janeiro to confront the epic Inca Trail rally. His diary of that remarkable eight-week, 15,000-mile adventure was chronicled in the Union College magazine that year.
In August, he begins a month-long road rally in South Africa.
Taylor traces his fascination with cars to his father, also a collector. “I still have the 1931 Cadillac Phaeton that he had,” he says. “In high school, I drove a Model A Ford, which I still have today. When I was a sophomore at Union, one of my friends had a new Austin Healy. I lusted after that car and bought my first one 12 years later.”
As someone who approaches most things boldly, from cars to careers, Jim Taylor is sure to pursue his newest role at Union with the same sense of purpose and passion, proud to be among those steering the College in ever-better directions.