A Place Without a Map

Anyone born into a larger family can find it difficult to establish an individual identity. But for Mark Taylor—who grew up with two brothers and seven sisters—the task might very well have been overwhelming if he hadn’t known from an early age what he wanted (and seemed naturally gifted) to do.

When Mark was in sixth grade and his parents founded Tyndale House Publishers out of their home, he dove right in. The company had just one product in that first year—Living Letters, which was a paraphrase of the New Testament epistles. Mark’s dad, Kenneth Taylor, had created the paraphrase that would eventually be published as The Living Bible.

The old garage that doubled as Tyndale’s first warehouse.

“I started working in the company after school each day, packing and shipping books to bookstores,” Mark says. “I continued working after school and during the summers as the company grew.”Of all his siblings, Mark was the most involved in the operations of the company—and that trend continued as he became a young man. When he was a senior in high school, Mark’s dad handed him a book manuscript and said, “Try your hand at editing this.” So without any instructions or guidelines, Mark tackled the job—and did well enough that before he graduated high school he was working alongside his dad, making editorial suggestions on the portion of The Living Bible translation that was in process at the time.

Mark continued to do free-lance editorial work during his college years at Duke University.“It was during that period that I was first exposed to the work of Tyndale House Foundation,” he says. “I had the opportunity to sit in on a Foundation board meeting, and before I knew it, I had been asked to become a member of the board. After I graduated from Duke in 1973, my first full-time job was as Executive Director of Tyndale House Foundation. I maintained that position for a number of years, and in 1984 I became President and CEO of Tyndale House Publishers. Thirty-six years later, I continue as CEO of Tyndale House Ministries, which is the combined operation of the publishing company and the grant-making foundation.”

Mark and his father.

As Tyndale House Publishers has grown into one of the largest Christian publishers in the world, it has had to adapt to a massive shift in the industry—from brick and mortar stores, to online. Time and time again, Mark has found himself confronted with a task that, just like when he was a senior in high school, had no instructions or guidelines. But with these challenges have come great rewards as well.

In Mark’s words:“One of the most rewarding aspects of my entire career was serving alongside 80 biblical scholars as we created the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT). I chaired the meetings of the Bible Translation Committee, and I served as Chief Stylist for the translation. I wrestled with every word of every verse of the Bible many times through those years. The NLT was first published in 1996, and Tyndale House has sold more than 40 million copies since then. In recent years it has been the #2 or #3 best-selling English translation in the market.”

Mark brings all these years at the head of a large company and his experience in serving on various boards to his position as the chair of the SIL LEAD board. He enjoys the position and the opportunity to help Executive Director Paul Frank wrestle with the issues confronting SIL LEAD.

Mark recognizes that SIL LEAD’s work with USAID programs presents difficulty in planning for longer-term growth (due to the ebbs and flows of that revenue stream). But he recognizes that our close relationship with many professional colleagues in SIL International who are already living and working in areas where USAID projects are being launched uniquely situates us to meet the needs of those programs.

Mark adds, “We can certainly carry out our work with high integrity, and that makes SIL LEAD a strong participant in various projects in the world of language, education, and development.”

This work requires creativity and foresight as we attempt to meet timeless needs in new ways, solving problems that do not come with instructions or guidelines. We are therefore grateful to have Mark Taylor—who is no stranger to that sort of challenge—to help us find our way.