Post-industrial age guru Toffler dies at 87

‘Future Shock’ author predicted digital angst

NEW YORK — Alvin Toffler, a guru of the post-industrial age whose million-selling “Future Shock” and other books anticipated the disruptions and transformations brought about by the rise of digital technology, has died. He was 87.

He died late Monday in his sleep at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, said Yvonne Merkel, a spokeswoman for his Reston, Virginia-based consulting firm, Toffler Associates.

One of the world’s most famous “futurists,” Toffler was far from alone in seeing the economy shift from manufacturing and mass production to a computerized and information-based model. But few were more effective at popularizing the concept, predicting the effects and assuring the public that upheavals of modern times were part of a larger, more hopeful story.

“Future Shock,” a term he first used in a 1965 magazine article, was how Toffler defined the growing feeling of anxiety brought on by the sense that life was changing at a bewildering and ever-accelerating pace. His book combined an understanding tone and page-turning urgency as he diagnosed contemporary trends and headlines, from war protests to the rising divorce rate, as symptoms of a historical cycle overturning every facet of life.

“We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots — religion, nation, community, family, or profession — are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust,” he wrote.

ST. LOUIS — Jack C. Taylor, who started a leasing company with seven cars and built it into Enterprise Rent-ACar, died Saturday. He was 94.

Enterprise said in a statement Taylor died in St. Louis after a brief illness.

In 1957, Taylor founded Executive Leasing at a Cadillac dealership in St. Louis where he was a salesman. He rented cars to customers whose own vehicles were in the shop.

Eventually the business grew into Enterprise, which differed from competitors by allowing people to pick up and drop off cars away from airports.

Forbes magazine this year estimated Taylor’s wealth at $5.3 billion and put him 248th on its list of the richest people.

Taylor, who joined the U.S. Navy during World War II, renamed his company in 1969 for the USS Enterprise, the aircraft carrier on which he served.

Enterprise bought the Alamo and National brands in 2007 to strengthen its position in airports — Enterprise itself had begun operating at airports in 1995.

The privately held company changed its name to Enterprise Holdings Inc. in 2009. Enterprise says that it had $19.4 billion in revenue and more than 1.7 million vehicles in 2015, making it more than twice the size of each of its two main U.S. competitors, Hertz and Avis.

It also sells cars and trucks and operates worldwide, with more than 90,000 employees in 70 countries. Taylor retired as CEO in 1991 and as the company’s executive chairman in 2013.

“My father took a simple idea and created a great company,” his son, Andrew C. Taylor, the company’s current executive chairman, said in a statement.

The company said that since 1982 Taylor had donated more than $860 million to organizations including Washington University in St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

According to the company, Taylor left college in 1942 to join the Navy, becoming a combat pilot in the Pacific. The company said he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

The company said there will be a private funeral service.

Jack C. Taylor