It’s a major milestone year for Homewood resident Kendra Dinkins and her family. Taylor Electric Company, where Dinkins is president and chief executive officer, is marking its 100th year in operation.
The fourth-generation, Black, family owned electrical contracting services company, which she co-owns with her sister, Karen Michele Dinkins, and their first cousin Bryan Taylor, employs roughly 80 people. The Chicago-based company is expected to generate nearly $20 million in revenue this year, a record, said Kendra Dinkins.
This entrepreneurial story began with company founder Sam Taylor, Dinkins’ great grandfather. He had only a sixth grade education but a strong entrepreneurial spirit, shared Dinkins, who is president of the Federation of Women Contractors.
“He got a job as a janitor at a trades school,” and later asked a white friend to order trades books for him, said Dinkins.
He studied and “begged and begged the school to let him take the (electrician’s) test, and he took the test and passed,” Dinkins said.
Initially, “he worked for contractors for free because nobody would hire him. Then he became a licensed contractor on his own and went into business for himself,” she said.
How was he able to build the company at a time when discrimination was prevalent and widely accepted in the industry with no wide-scale efforts in place to combat it?
“Basically, a lot of perseverance,” Dinkins said. “He would start work on projects, go home and come back, and wiring would have been pulled from the building. Materials would be missing. He would have to start sleeping on the job site with a shotgun to make sure he could complete his own projects.”
Gradually he built up his client base. Initially the company focused on smaller and mid-size jobs in the commercial and industrial sectors. Sam Taylor’s son, Rufus Taylor, began contracting with major companies to provide electrical services for new construction and the rehabilitation of multiunit residential and special-use facilities, which helped escalate the company’s growth.
But it wasn’t easy for him either.
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“The major challenge was being accepted by white corporate America. They thought we weren’t qualified or skilled enough to do the work,” said Bryan Taylor, Rufus Taylor’s son, a foreman and journeyman electrician at the company.
But Taylor Electric built a reputation of doing quality work “and that opened doors” Bryan Taylor said.
Today, the company does commercial, multiunit residential and hospitality projects and facilities maintenance projects. Clients also include schools and churches. The company has worked on electrical projects at O’Hare International Airport, the University of Chicago, 900 Shops on Michigan Avenue, Willis Tower and retailers Michaels and Marshalls, and provides electrical contracting services at Soldier Field and Guaranteed Rate stadium, said Dinkins.
Kendra Dinkins, who grew up in Chicago Heights, worked part-time at the company during her youth as did Karen Michele Dinkins and Bryan Taylor.
Karen Michele Dinkins, who holds a master’s degree in project management and a bachelor’s degree in communications and human relations, is executive vice president and chief operations officer. In her early years at the company, she worked as secretary and office manager.
Kendra Dinkins holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and previously worked for many years as a teacher. Before coming to work full-time at Taylor Electric, she was employed for several years in North Carolina at an all-girls boarding school. There she held several roles including, as an athletic trainer, dorm mom and heading up the community service program.
In 2007, her dad, Kenneth Dinkins, who was vice president and director of field operations at Taylor, asked her to come on board as bookkeeper. She moved up to controller, took classes in construction management, began managing projects and succeeded her cousin Martha Taylor, Bryan Taylor’s sister, as president, CEO and co-owner in 2015.
The first several years were difficult as the company had to navigate through and recover from the Great Recession. At one point, revenues dropped 50%, said Kendra Dinkins. The recession prompted the company to restructure. It eliminated divisions including one that installed and maintained big signs, and a data, telephone and fire alarms division.
“The owners and all the office staff took a pay freeze for us to be able to stabilize our overhead,” she said. “We did that for about two years. We always came together as a family and decided we were going to do everything we could to keep the doors open.”
Amid the pandemic, she said the company’s business continued to grow.
“We had a lot of contracts booked in and were in the middle of contracts,” she said.
But they had to contend with higher prices for materials and having to start and stop jobs because of COVID-19.
“We took serious hits because of the differences in the material pricing,” she said. “We’re definitely in a better place now. We changed the way we bid jobs and made sure we incorporated language and parameters within our bids and contracts that protects us from those kinds of surges you see happening with material prices or incidents where you see your material is stuck on a ship somewhere or in another country for extra weeks.”
Sam Taylor never could have imagined that 100 years after starting the company, his great-granddaughter would be leading the business and working with other family members to continue building a successful legacy.
“It’s unreal at times realizing the impact that the company has had on so many different people, so many different families,” Kendra Dinkins said. “Charles Stewart was Sam Taylor’s first employee. His grandson just retired from Taylor last year. He worked for Taylor for almost 28 years. While we’ve been here and employed generations of Taylors, we’ve also employed generations of other folks.”
The warehouse manager has worked there for at least 15 years, and his father was an electrician there for almost 40 years, she said.
Karen Michele Dinkins said, “I honestly don’t realize how big of a deal it is at times.”
She shared the story of attending a recent conference and introducing herself as being from Taylor Electric.
“There was someone from another electrical company that chimed in ‘They are celebrating their 100-year anniversary,’ and everyone started clapping. I didn’t think to say it. But it’s really amazing.”
“My dad and my granddad would be proud,” said Bryan Taylor. “They would be smiling.”
Going forward, Kendra Dinkins said, their goal “is to continue to grow, to continue being able to help other families earn and make a living and to expand our name beyond the Chicagoland area.”
Francine Knowles is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
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