Artist and entrepreneur values what he learned from his father
Ferris High School’s Matthew Taylor is launching out, growing as an artist and entrepreneur and finding great happiness – all coming after the saddest time in his life.
His father, Phillip, died in December after a five-year battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, during which time father and son grew even closer. And that is quite something because they had the best relationship to begin with.
Phillip taught his son wood- and leather-working, and they worked to restore vintage trucks. The two talked about everything. Three years ago, Taylor told his father there was a girl he liked, and his father encouraged him to ask her out. Life was too short to wait, his father said.
Taylor, 18, followed his father’s advice and has been dating the same young woman ever since. They are now engaged and plan to marry this summer.
When he was 15, he took the skills he learned from his dad and founded MPT Crafts, a woodworking business. He marketed the picnic tables and other products he made through DECA at school, as well as online and through fliers. He did so well that a year later his brother Adam, now 24, and their father suggested they grow it into a family business, which is now Taylor Made Tools, an enterprise that takes about 25 hours of Taylor’s time each week.
“I’ve always been very entrepreneurial and was happy for us to do things together, to be the family we wanted to be,” Taylor said. Brother Adam, a student at Gonzaga University, is the blacksmith in the group, creating the ax heads, knives, turning chisels and other items they make. Matt Taylor makes the handles.
“Dad did all the things we did while still working as a broadcast engineer at Gonzaga,” he said.
They have expanded into leather goods and furniture, and when the family remodeled their kitchen last year, Taylor helped make the cabinets.
He has a long-range plan. When his girlfriend earns her accounting degree, she will join the company. Mother Diana’s hand-woven crafts will be added, and in a few years, they plan to have a storefront and eventually turn the company into a trade college for tool-making. Taylor took his business plan to the state DECA competition and did well there.
As much as he has enjoyed developing as an artist and craftsman, he cherished even more the time he had with his father. Last summer when their ’59 pickup needed a new motor, his father was too ill to install it.
“He knew how to do it, but couldn’t. I could do it but didn’t know how,” Taylor said. “So we spent the time together, him telling me, and me doing it.”
Even though he missed some school time during his father’s illness, he will graduate with a 3.5 GPA and attend Gonzaga this fall, majoring in business.
“Everyone at Ferris was wonderful to me,” he said. “They understood, made a difference and gave me the hugs I needed when I needed them.”
He misses his father but he’s come to understand, “I’ve had the years with him that I was supposed to have.”