Gillian Henning Taylor feature in AED Magazine
From Crescendos to Construction: How Gillian Taylor Henning Found Her Home in Distribution
Her dad calls it her “lightbulb moment.”
It was 2019 and the Taylor family – father Ken, mother Martha, and children Ian, Gillian, Gordon and Stuart – sat down with a family business consultant. As dealer principal of Ohio Cat, Ken Taylor had followed his grandfather and father into the equipment dealership business. Was there any interest from the fourth generation?
As the meeting progressed, daughter Gillian Taylor Henning observed that joining the company didn’t mean she would immediately have to shadow her father, learn his job, be him. “I realized I could join the business in an area where I could use skills I already had,” is how Henning, now 29, describes this moment.
BURNOUT PROMPTS DISCOVERY
After four years as a middle and high school music teacher – during which the choral music program doubled in size – Henning was becoming frustrated. “I was quickly burning out,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine doing it for 30 more years.”
Her interest in Ohio Cat came at an ideal time for the 1,700-plus-employeecompany, Taylor comments. “After all of our growth, we needed to heighten our internal communications,” he says.
“Dad felt like there was a disconnect, that not everyone was aware of everything we were capable of, our product lines and what the other branches were doing,” Henning adds.
Bingo. Henning loved storytelling and writing; the newly created corporate communications specialist position was a “perfect role,” she says.
PRODUCING KTTV
Henning’s first mission: to generate content for Ohio Cat’s KTTV, which stands for “Ken Taylor TV.” All stories were fodder for the monthly video series: sales successes, process improvements, safety spotlights, employee profiles, etc.
“She knocked it out of the park,” Taylor says. “People got to know her work ethic and she quickly earned respect.”
“It was a great way for me to meet a lot of people, travel to different branches and find out what was going on and share those stories with the rest of the company,” Henning says.
MENTORS ALONG THE WAY
The next step came in early 2023 when Henning became a Cat Rental Store rental coordinator in the Cleveland area.
A rental coordinator engages in the entire process, says Dorrie Fryman, general manager of Ohio Cat’s Cat Rental Stores: “They process all rental orders, find the equipment, set up the contract, arrange insurance coverage, get customer signatures, and make sure the information gets to our yard so the machines are ready to dispatch.”
Henning also attended Caterpillar’s annual Rental Summit, which helped prepare her for her current challenge– managing two rental stores in Canton and Youngstown, Ohio. “Customer service is strongly rooted in Gillian,” Fryman continues. “To her, the bottom line at the end of the day is that the customer is happy.”
Henning has deep respect for her mentor. “Dorrie inspires me as a woman working her way up into the well-deserved role of general manager of rental,” Henning says. “She is strong, cares about her employees, earns trust and is extremely knowledgeable in her field.”
Among others, Melissa Brooks, Ohio Cat’s chief administrative officer, has mentored Henning. Henning says of Brooks, “She has a really broad, high-level view of the company and knows our company goals, strategy and family continuity.”
“Gillian’s a natural leader,” Brooks says, “and she just has this natural ability with people. She’s also very driven; she’s actively engaged. She’s good at seeing what the issues are and trying to figure out solutions to move forward.”
MILESTONES
“There are a lot of paths to the dealer principal role,” adds Brooks. “It’s less prescriptive ‘how to get from A to Z’ and more ‘these are the milestones that need to happen along the way.’”
There are quite a few milestones in Henning’s life right now, both professional and personal. She got married in July, gained her latest position in December, and is pursuing her MBA.
And she’s gotten involved with AED’s Emerging Leaders Council. “Networking at AED meetings is the biggest thing for me,” she says. “It’s great to be with supportive people who are going through the same things I’m going through.”
Henning also values the examples of the women who are in third- and fourth-generation roles in the Cat dealer family. “It’s nice to have that support, and to see that they do have both a career and families, because I definitely want to be a mother someday,” she says.
With a great team backing her, Henning says her primary mentor is her dad. “Joining the company, I was a bit afraid of how this would change our relationship,” Henning says. “But we’ve gained even more respect for one another, and I’m now seeing what he’s been doing all these years and how his employees respect him as a leader.”
The benefits aren’t one-sided. “It’s kind of an isolating thing for dad to be the only person in your family doing these things,” Henning says, “so sharing these experiences has been rewarding for him, too.” And another Taylor has signed on: Ken’s son Gordon joined the company’s Six Sigma department in 2023.
“Gillian’s a thoughtful, independent doer,” Taylor says. “I’m confident she’ll be able to put the right support team together over time so that she can do everything she wants to do in life.”
