Jack Taylor, here with his wife, Bernadine, helped found the BBC-8 TV channel in Briny Breezes and led the charge to build the ocean clubhouse. He was also a carver who led the Chiselers woodworking club. Photo provided
By Ron Hayes
BRINY BREEZES — Jack Taylor first visited Briny Breezes in 1974, bought a home in 1984 and threw himself into the life of the town.
Mr. Taylor died March 31 at his summer home in Waterford, Mich. He was 86 and had been in failing health since August.
When autumn came to Michigan, Briny Breezes beckoned.
“He absolutely loved Briny Breezes,” his son John F. Taylor said. “It was his life. He used to say, ‘When the leaves start falling off the trees, that’s it.’” A Quonset hut became home to the Chiselers woodworking club in large part because of Mr. Taylor’s hard work.
The town has its own television station because of his leadership.
As both a member and president of the town’s corporate board in the early 1990s, he led the fight to see a new ocean clubhouse rise from the dunes where its dilapidated predecessor stood.
John Duncan “Jack” Taylor was born in Toronto on July 28, 1932, and raised in Rugby, England. He served in the Royal Air Force and was a longtime member of Rotary International, the Masons, and Christ Lutheran Church.
In the late 1970s, Mr. Taylor invented a battery-powered “pre-alarm” that could be placed behind a plastic shield covering fire alarms. If a prankster opened the plastic cover to pull the alarm, the pre-alarm would frighten him away without setting off the actual alarm.
In 1980, Mr. Taylor was awarded a patent for the invention and the family company, Safety Technology International Inc., was formed. Today STI Inc. employs about 70 people in Michigan and another 30 in the United Kingdom.
That background in security benefited Briny Breezes when Mr. Taylor helped the town establish a system of access cards for the laundry and clubhouse.
He also served as both a vice president and president of the Chiselers woodworking club.
“Because of Jack, we have the Chiselers Club,” said Ira Friedman, a friend and fellow woodcarver. “We had a Quonset hut with nothing in it, and when Jack was finished we had 250 lockers and everything is still in perfect condition. He was a terrific carver, and if it weren’t for him, there’d be no club.”
While serving as president of the club, Mr. Taylor saw the first women admitted to what had always been considered a males-only institution.
“Some of the other ladies will want to join, and really it hasn’t been a problem up to this point,” he told town historian Joan Nicholls in a 1991 interview. “It’s only a problem if we perceive it as a problem.”
In 1998, shortly after the town was hooked up for cable, Mr. Taylor helped usher in its BBC-8 TV channel.
“Chuck Stimets, who was an engineer, asked if I had a camcorder to see if we could hook into the system,” he recalled for The Coastal Star in 2012. “We had no idea what would happen.”
Mr. Taylor fetched his Panasonic VHS recorder and shot some footage of a neighbor lady hanging out clothes. Stimets wired the camera to the cable and, lo and behold, a neighbor lady hanging out clothes appeared on the screen. Recalling his childhood in England, he dubbed the channel BBC-8 after the British Broadcasting Corp., and a tiny television station came on the air, broadcasting Good Morning, Briny Breezes five days a week in season.
While serving as president of the town’s corporate board, Mr. Taylor fought the state bureaucracy to see a new clubhouse built on the same site where its previous incarnation had fallen into disrepair.
“Jack was insisting we were putting it back where it was, and he helped me a lot with the authorities,” local architect Digby Bridges recalled after hearing of his friend’s death. “We became very good friends, and then he helped me a lot with the project. He was a charming man — and a doer. He got things done.”
The new clubhouse opened, where Jack Taylor wanted it, in 1991, and after moving about the park several times, he spent his final days here in a manufactured home nearby.
Neighbor Tim Brady recalled, “He was fantastic, soft-spoken and a good listener. And very positive. Almost everything that happened here, Jack was on the positive side of it in some way.”
Mr. Taylor’s wife of nearly 60 years, Bernadine, predeceased him, as did a son, Mark Taylor.
In addition to his son John F. Taylor, he is survived by two daughters, Margie Gobler and Lori Lynn Taylor; grandchildren Tasha Smith, Tiffany Gobler, Brent Gobler, Trevor Taylor, Aaron Taylor, Todd Taylor, Andrew Redker and Jonathan Redker; great-grandchildren Reese and Cole Smith and Elizabeth and Sarah Redker; and a brother, Doug Taylor.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that donations be made to Briny Breezes Charities, with checks payable to J.D. Taylor Family LLC, 2306 Airport Road, Waterford, MI 48327.
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