If it's true that every cloud has a silver lining, then the people of Louisiana and Mississippi ought to have a lifetime supply of the shiny metal, because in August 2005, Hurricane Katrina brought them a whole lot of clouds, plus wind, rain and flooding. While most of the world's attention was focused on the coastal damage, Katrina packed a devastating punch far inland as well.

“We're 125 miles from the coast,” explains Mary Edith Shapley, division manager of Taylor Power in Richland, Mississippi, “and we had sustained 90 mile-per-hour winds for hours as Katrina passed through. The damage here in Richland, in nearby Jackson, and towns all around us simply was incredible.”

Taylor Power is one of the 10 original Perkins Master Distributors in North America and is a major supplier of Perkins-powered gensets to customers throughout the United States. Prior to Katrina, their business was primarily building generators for the poultry, intermodal, commercial, and trailer-mounted generator industries.

“Katrina certainly has changed the way we do business,” Shapley says. “Since the catastrophe, our business has increased tremendously, and most of that is directly related to disaster preparedness and homeland security concerns. It's all part of the new 'be ready' FEMA model put in place since Katrina.”

Katrina's impact on Taylor Power's business was great enough to earn them Perkins' Sales Leadership Award for the highest sales volume of 1106D engines by any Master Distributor in 2006. Most of those engines went into emergency gensets supplied to customers, including the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), the poultry industry, various municipalities, and cellular telephone companies.

“Taylor Power has taken good care of us,” says Charlie Smith, MEMA bureau director for operations. “We have a great relationship with them.”

“Cellular South was well prepared for the hurricane,” Shapley said. “There were 500 or so our gensets powering their cell phone towers from Memphis to the Gulf Coast, and they operated right through the hurricane.”

Taylor's response to customers and their needs are the true 'silver lining' of the Katrina experience for Shapley and the 35 other Taylor employees who delivered far above and beyond the call of duty during the crisis.

“This company has always been an employee-oriented business,” Shapley says. “We let our people know where the gensets they're building are going and what they will be used for. We are a team in every sense of the word, and always have been. But,” she adds, “Katrina gave us a chance to show everyone just how important that is.”

In one case, a local Richland nursing home was depending on emergency power supplied by a competitor's genset. When it failed, the engine manufacturer was not prepared or able to repair it, and the nursing home went dark. The nursing home administrator and the mayor of Richland came to Taylor seeking help. Taylor dispatched a service engineer to make repairs, even though the malfunctioning engine was not a Perkins. “Our service engineer got the unit up and running and because of that effort, the city of Richland ordered a lot of generators from Taylor after Katrina and the double whammy one month later, Hurricane Rita.”

“We worked 14 hours a day building gensets; it was a turning point for our business,” Shapley says. “Customers saw what we're made of: dependable, reliable, and committed to our communities and to them.”

“Katrina taught us a lot,” Shapley says. “In particular it taught us the absolute necessity of engine maintenance and clean fuel. Because of this experience and of contaminated fuel or fuel that had just been sitting for a long period of time, we now supply a free bottle of conditioner with a biocide for every Taylor generator we sell. New Tier 3 engines like the 1106D simply can't tolerate dirt, and the filters need changing. Education to the customer is vital on the importance of maintenance and clean fuel.

“Regardless of the application, the mindset of every customer we have served since Katrina has been the same – be ready,” Shapley added. “We were, and we are. We just hope we never get another chance to prove it the way Katrina did.”