CARY, N.C. -

Sheldon Taylor grew up about 15 miles south of Detroit, and several family members built Ford vehicles. Taylor’s great-grandfather retired from Ford’s Dearborn Stamping Plant, his grandfather from the OEM’s Woodhaven Assembly plant, and his grandmother from the Wixom plant.

While Blue Oval blood might still be in the family with an aunt and three uncles working for Ford, Taylor is well on his way to a successful dealership career, emulating his father, John.

“My father had the greatest impact on my choice to get into this industry. I grew up watching his hard work and wanted to emulate that as best as I could,” Taylor said about his father, who now is partner of Dunning Motors after starting his dealership career by washing vehicles.

Beyond the family influence, Taylor credited Dale Herring and Matt Walsh with aiding his rise to his current dealership position where his responsibilities range from developing sales strategy to managing inventory and overseeing transactions as well as customer relations. Taylor called Herring and Walsh “two very intelligent people in our organization who have helped me learn a lot in a short period of time.”

Taylor added, “My favorite thing about the car business would have to be the people. I've had the chance to meet some great people, and it’s those relationships that I think I will look back on.”

Being one of the younger members of the organization, Taylor is eager to cultivate his automotive career.

“My career is still pretty young and I have a lot of things I still hope to accomplish personally, but the thing that I am most proud of so far would be the team we have built here at Dunning Subaru and the culture that has been created as a result of the great people we have on our team,” Taylor said.

“I’m a big student of lean leadership and believe we get our best results when the whole team clearly understands the direction we are trying to go and everybody is sharing their ideas on how we can improve every day,” he added.

Sheldon Taylor, 25, is used-car sales manager at Dunning Subaru.

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