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From the Desk of...

Sid Taylor:
"Once a Marine,
Always a Marine"

Sid Taylor
CEO SET Enterprises

"Once a Marine, always a Marine."

That's what it says on the bumper sticker on Sid E. Taylor's car.

Some 40 years after Taylor evac'd out of the jungles of Vietnam the Corps is still an integral part of the Mississippi native’s life.

"I think about Vietnam every single day," Taylor said during a recent interview. "It is etched in my memory and it will never go away.

"When you go through something that traumatic, it stays with you."

But while his time in service has affected him deeply, it has not slowed him on his journey from the hot cotton fields of Mississippi to his current work environment, a neat and modern corner office in Warren, Michigan.

Taylor is founder, CEO and president of S.E.T Enterprises Inc., an automotive parts supplier that employs about 190 people at its Warren headquarters and at four plants in the Midwest.

He started the company in 1989. That first year, his sales were $90,000.

This year, he expects the company sales to be at least $155 million. And that's in a down economy.

The company supplies metal processing services, primarily to automotive, light truck and heavy truck manufacturers. Its customers include Ford, DaimlerChrysler, General Motors, Tower Automotive, AK Steel, Arcelor Mittal, Allegheny-Ludlum, Nucor, Severstal, U.S. Steel, Lenawee Stamping, Arvin Sango and various others.

Taylor will be speaking at the fourth annual Southeastern Michigan Veteran Entrepreneurial Training (V.E.T.) Conference. The conference is Oct. 23 at Michigan State University's Management Education Center in Troy.

The conference is sponsored by General Dynamics and will focus on how veterans can start their own business and how veteran business owners may expand and improve their existing businesses. Details about the conference are available on the www.VetBizCentral.org home page.

The son of a Baptist minister, Taylor was born and raised in historic Vicksburg, Miss. In the summer, he worked in the cotton fields nearby. But at age 17 after graduating from high school, he moved to the Detroit area and got a job at a General Motors plant in Pontiac, working as a clerk. But not for long.

The country was at war in Vietnam, and in 1968 he was drafted into the Marines.

He was sent to boot camp in San Diego and then on for advanced training, as an M-60 machine gun operator and special weapons training, at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

After that, he soon found himself assigned to the 3rd Marines, 3rd Battalion, Bravo Company up near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in South Vietnam. The fighting there was intense and he was wounded.

Taylor was shipped back to Japan and then stateside to recover.

After returning home from the Marines, he rejoined GM. There, he began working his way up through the ranks. He also went to college at night, earning a bachelor's degree in business management from the University of Detroit.

In all, he spent 22 years working for GM. But after all of those years, he said he felt it was time to move on and become his own boss.

"The process of becoming an entrepreneur has to start with a dream," he said. And he had a dream.

"I felt if I wanted to go as high as I wanted to go, I had to go out on my own."

To start his business, he needed money. He got a loan from the bank, one from GM and one from the Michigan Strategic Fund. And he cashed in the GM stock he had accumulated over 22 years.

"I put everything on the line," he said. He wanted to start a tool and die company, but backed off due to environmental issues at the proposed site of the business.

"But appreciate that I had a plan B -- the steel business," Taylor said with a grin.

He went to Ford and laid out his proposal for supplying the automaker with metal process services.

"I sold them on me and what I was about and my business plan."

From there, he said, his business grew gradually but steadily. In August of this year, the company celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Starting a business is never easy. Here are some tips from Taylor that may help guide you.

• Have a clear vision of where you want to go.

• Have a strong business case.

* Have enough cash.

• Talk with an accountant, attorney and other professionals.

• Have a strong work ethic.

• Have patience.

• Hire the right people.

• Include community outreach in your business plan.

For the last five years, Taylor's S.E.T. Enterprises is one of the top 25 African American-owned companies by Black Enterprise Magazine. Taylor's company also has earned numerous other awards over the years.

His most recent award is the Major General Lucius Theus Award of Excellence from the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum. He is the Guest Speaker at the museum’s annual event this year.

In addition, Taylor is the founder and chairman of the Real Life 101 Scholarship Fund, a non-profit organization, reallife101.org . Begun in 2000, the program now supports 100 African-American males in colleges and universities.

Every year, the organization also provides more than 100 computers in inner-city schools in Detroit, Saginaw and Chicago. Next year, the group plans to expand the program to schools in Flint, Michigan and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Taylor said that giving back to his community is something he has felt compelled to do since returning from Vietnam.

"I felt God had spared me and I needed to find a way to make an impact in the community."

About S.E.T. Enterprises Inc.
Founder: CEO and president: Sid E. Taylor:
Founded: 1989
Employees: 190
Headquarters: 30500 Van Dyke Avenue
Suite 701
Warren, Mich. 48903
Manufacturing locations: Macedonia, Ohio; Chicago Heights, Ill.; New Boston, Mich.; and North Vernon, Ind.
Telephone: (586) 573-3600
Web site: setenterprises.com
Services: A full-service provider of metal processing.
Major customers: Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, LLC, General Motors, Tower Automotive, AK Steel, Arcelor Mittal, Allegheny-Ludlum, Nucor, Severstal, U.S.A Mfg. Inc., Arvin Sango, Lenawee Stamping and US Steel.

Carl Stoddard
Maj. MIARNG (Ret.)

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