With more than 40 years of experience leading successful businesses, Purdue trustee and alumnus Shawn Taylor is a visionary and strategic thinker with a proven track record of building effective teams. But his stellar career would not have been possible without a chance encounter with Dr. Cornell A. Bell and the Business Opportunity Program (BOP).
“My mom and my best friend’s mom were at school on a Monday for a parent-teacher conference, and Dr. Bell just happened to be visiting as a recruiter,” Taylor says. “After selling my mom on BOP and Purdue, he visited my apartment the following Sunday and talked about the program, students he had recruited, their backgrounds, and their success as students and professionals. For three hours I was dazzled by Dr. Bell’s conversation. Little did I know that he and the program now named after him would change my life and the life of my family for generations to come.”
Inspired by Bell, Taylor arrived on the West Lafayette campus for the BOP summer program in 1978 just four days after graduating from Chicago Vocational High School. “Coming to Purdue was an eye-opening experience, especially for someone who was the first in his family to attend college and came from the southside housing projects,” he says. “But BOP helped me establish a community of peers and mentors who I could count on for support.”
Taylor’s BOP cohort also helped him improve his study habits. “At Purdue, I realized I was easily distracted studying in the dorm,” he says. “I was comfortable in Potter Library, so I would set up in the basement level where there were no windows because I didn’t want to have a sense of time. I didn’t want any distractions, which allowed me to focus on what I needed to do.”
A star athlete in high school, Taylor initially wanted to continue his football career, making the Purdue team as a walk-on in the spring of 1979. However, after a brief conversation with his biology professor, Dr. Al Chiscon, he elected to walk away from the game and focus on being a full-time student.
“Dr. Chiscon said to me, ‘...you’re one of my brightest students and for the last several years you’ve used every muscle below your neck. Why don’t you wake up and use the muscle sitting on top of your shoulders for a change?’ I walked out of his office and decided that I had played my last down of football,” Taylor recalls. “That advice and decision changed the trajectory of my life.”
The second semester of his freshman year, Taylor also made a deal with Dr. Bell that if he liked MGMT 200 and achieved a grade of B or better, he’d major in accounting. “I aced the class and the rest is history,” he says. “I happily became an accounting major and made the dean’s list four out of my eight semesters at Purdue.”
Thanks to financial support from BOP, most of Taylor’s first-year expenses were covered. To fund his education beyond that point, he applied for numerous academic scholarships. “I received other scholarships from Purdue as a sophomore, and then in my junior year, I started reaching out to companies in Chicago who offered scholarships. And in my senior year, I received a scholarship from the National Association of Black Accountants.”
Taylor’s performance in and outside the classroom gave him a leg up on other scholarship applicants. He was a teaching assistant for two years for Biology 211 and 212 and was recognized as one of the top TAs in the department. He graduated with distinction in the top 10% of his class and was nominated as the top senior in Wiley Hall.
Taylor also credits his decision to pursue a career with a Big 8 accounting firm to Dr. Bell and BOP. “He frequently had former students come to class to speak, and one of them was a senior staff auditor for an international firm,” he says. “I was mesmerized with how he described his career progression, the type of work he did, and the people he worked with. And towards the end of his presentation, I said to myself, ‘That's what I want to do.’”
After several interviews facilitated by Bell, Taylor was offered a full-time position with Arthur Andersen & Co. in its Dallas office upon graduation, and carried with him the same grit and work ethic he’d developed at Purdue. “The vast majority of people work 40-50 hours a week,” he says. “Once you get past that threshold, the competition drops off significantly. If you’re not in the game, if you’re not doing the work, you’ll never get the opportunity. That made the difference for me.”
A critical turning point in Taylor’s business life came in 1996 when he decided to pursue entrepreneurship. Through his relationships with executives at PepsiCo, he set forth on a path to become a Taco Bell franchisee. After creating a business plan and resigning from Arthur Andersen, he launched Family EATs Limited Partnership and acquired, owned, developed and operated as many as 33 Taco Bell locations in the Houston market. It became the largest African-American owned Taco Bell franchise in the nation with sales exceeding $30 million and over 500 employees.
He wasn’t done. In 2011, Taylor joined a group of business professionals who purchased the MLB Houston Astros, which he also served as a board member of the Astros Foundation. Two years later, he became president and operating partner of Zaxby’s Houston LLC, a restaurant franchisee. A winner of the Burton D. Morgan Entrepreneurship Award from the Daniels School, Taylor currently serves on the boards of Noodles & Company (NDLS) and the Memorial Herman Foundation. He was the keynote speaker at Purdue’s 2015 commencement and was appointed to the Board of Trustees in July 2022.
Now, Taylor is using his role as a trustee to help grow the BOP summer program from 35 students per year — its highest number since 1981— to as many as 50 or 60 students. He’s also leading efforts to grow African-American enrollment and to endow both BOP and the Minority Engineering Program in perpetuity. “That would create a security blanket that ensures their continuity and protects the programs from lapses in other funding sources,” he says.
Taylor is also determined to increase the amount of scholarship funding that goes to underrepresented students at Purdue. That’s been more difficult since the Supreme Court's June 2023 ruling that overturned affirmative action in admissions, which has led some colleges to end or alter race-based scholarships that benefit racial minorities.
“Scholarships are vital to success to student success, so we have to be creative in overcoming those obstacles,” Taylor says. “My number one priority is strategically building our individual and corporate funding sources and increasing access to scholarships by students who need them the most.”
To that end, Taylor points to data supporting BOP’s success, including a 73.7 percent four-year graduation rate. That compares to a 66.6% graduation rate for Purdue students as a whole, and 65.2 percent for those graduating with a Daniels School of Business degree. The program also boasts 93% job placement for its graduates, who earn an average starting salary that’s $10,000 higher than other Daniels School students. “These are deserving students,” he says. “They need a hand up, not a handout.”
In addition to his role as trustee, Taylor puts his words into action by speaking to students about his humble beginnings and teaching them about maximizing opportunities regardless of their surroundings.
“I’ve returned to campus to speak to BOP students nearly every year since graduating in 1982, often at my own expense,” he says. “My message is one that challenges students to strive for excellence and to overcome obstacles by not making excuses. I look at in business terms — it’s like paying interest or a dividend on your success. I encourage other BOP alumni to do the same. It’s more about giving forward than giving back.”
