A native of St. Louis, MO, US Army Captain William Rufus Taylor was the son of noted journalist and author Edmond L. Taylor, he grew up in France, returning to America with the fall of France at the outbreak of WWII. After the war he attended the Foreign Service School, Georgetown University, majoring in political science, then the School of Extention Studies, University of Maryland, majoring in economics.
Facing the draft he chose to enlist in the Army instead, serving first in the Far East and Korea, rising throught the ranks. Following OCS and then commissioned, he served in Germany, where his bi-lingual abilities eventually drew him from frontline service to assignments with NATO allied forces there. Following his military service, he then continued in government service, first with the Department of State (Foreign Service Institute, USAID/Laos), then transfering to Department of Defense (OSD/ISA and OSD/ARPA) with assignments in SEA (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia).
Leaving government service he helped establish a joint-venture consulting firm to help promote Asian-American business ventures in South East Asia. First as its Director for Operations, then becoming its Managing Director. Returning to the States in 1974, he was briefly associated with several business consulting firms working for clients in the ten Western states. Subsequently he took on several assignments for leading the manpower training and heavy construction projects with defense contractors in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt).
In 1985, he then began writing occasional Op-Ed submissions, few ever seeing print, but leading to invitation as a regular contributor/editor for a long-running veterans’ website. In turn that led him to set up his own website in 2010, as an independent Op-Ed platform for his commentaries covering America’s transition from the 20th into the early turbulent years of the 21st Century, generating a modest readership following both here and in some 73 other countries.
From 2010 WR Taylor worked until his death in 2019 with his grandson Joshua de Salis-Taylor-Sophrin to modernize the family office and establish the contemporary business unit J. de Salis-Sophrin & Associates, Inc.
