Yep, 19th richest man in America and a Hellcat Aviator
In 1957, Jack Taylor founded Enterprise Rent-A-Car (then called Executive Leasing) in the basement of a Cadillac dealership where he worked as a salesman in his hometown of St. Louis. In the coming decades, as the rest of the rental car industry focused on serving airports, Taylor created the “home city” rental market. By renting cars from convenient, neighborhood locations to meet a variety of customer needs, Enterprise became the industry leader by quietly but steadily developing a nearly $10 billion market that is now the largest and most hotly contested segment in the roughly $19 billion U.S. car rental industry.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Taylor briefly attended Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., and Washington University in St. Louis, before enlisting in the United States Navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He became an F6F Hellcat fighter pilot and saw combat duty in the Pacific Theatre from the decks of the aircraft carriers U.S.S. Essex and U.S.S. Enterprise (for which he later named his company.) Taylor was twice decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, and also received the Navy Air Medal.
