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By JOYANNA LOVE/ Managing Editor

Continuing the legacy of Maplesville business owner Mike Reynolds is important to those who worked closely with him.

His companies Taylor-Made Transportation and Taylor-Made Chip Mill are now owned by his wife Lori Reynolds.

“I worked with him for 26 years, until he passed away in 2020,” Lori Reynolds said.

After Mike Reynolds died, Lori Reynolds stepped into his former role of president and owner of Taylor-Made Transportation.

“She was already so familiar with everything, it was no problem for her to do that,” Sharon Roper, controller for Taylor-Made Transportation, said.

Mike Reynolds started Taylor-Made Transportation in 1974.

“We are just trying to continue on the business he established,” Lori Reynolds said.

Lori Reynolds’s son Matt Hamner and step-son Kyser Smith are also leaders in the company, and are being prepared to eventually take over as the next generation of leadership.

Mike Reynolds also founded Taylor-Made Lumber Company and continued the operation of Reynolds Wood Products that his father Millard had started.

Taylor-Made Lumber was sold two years ago to Philip Kelley and is now operating as Taylor-Made Lumber Reman. Reynolds Wood Products was sold to Mike and Lori’s nephew Tony Reynolds and is now Reynolds Timber Company. Mike Reynolds was a part of deciding the future ownership of the companies before his death.

Lori Reynolds said all of the businesses are “trying to continue the legacy” Mike Reynolds started.

“We continue to work closely with them,” Lori Reynolds said of the other companies.

“That would be one of the reasons we are so successful, we have continued those relationships with the businesses that Mike owned,” Scott Smith, operations coordinator and safety director, said.

He listed other contributors as essential to continuing the legacy of Mike Reynolds in Taylor-Made Transportation as “quality people and the relationships with the mills, providing quality service at a competitive price” and a focus on safety.

“Most of our employees that are here are long-time employees,” Lori Reynolds said. “We do not have a large turnover.”

Several employees have been working for the company for more than 30 years, and many have been there for at least 20 years.

Taylor-Made Transportation hauls wood products, chips, shavings, bark and flatbed freight throughout the southeast.

The Taylor-Made Chip Mill creates “pine and hardwood chips for the pulp and paper industries,” Smith said.

“When we haul bark to these mills, they use that for boiler fuel,” Lori Reynolds said.

Eight employees make up the management and staff for the office. The maintenance department of five employees is led by Joey Green.

“We couldn’t make it without him,” Lori Reynolds said.

There are about 25 truck drivers and 20 contract haulers working for the company.

The chip mill has five employees.

Taylor-Made Transportation hopes to expand in the future to include more flatbed operations and “grow our chip van truck division,” Lori Reynolds and Smith said.