Tom Taylor represents Georgia House District 79, which includes the entire City of Dunwoody, part of Chamblee, and part of Doraville in North DeKalb County.
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2010. He is currently serving as the Chairman on the MARTOC (MARTA Oversight) Committee and the Economic Development Subcommittee on Film and Entertainment
He also serves as a member of:
- Governmental Affairs
- Regulated Industries (Regulations Subcommittee Chair) Committees
- Appropriations Human Resources subcommittee
- Legislative appointee to the MARTA Ethics Board
- Georgia Based Film Production & Post Production Study Committee
Tom Taylor with Georgia trade delegation to Taiwan
Taylor serves informally as the Legislative outreach point person to the Diplomatic Consular Corps of the 79 foreign consulates and missions in Atlanta to promote trade and cultural relations between Georgia and these countries.
Since 2011, he has hosted over a 20 foreign delegations at the Georgia Capitol, up to and including at the ambassadorial level. When Georgia hosted the National Association of State Legislators, Tom was chosen by Governor Deal and Speaker Ralston to host the 250+ foreign delegates from over 50 countries.
Taylor was selected for three overseas trade / legislative exchange delegations, to Taiwan in 2011 and was the senior member and delegation leader to Turkey in 2013. Tom was well as delegation leader to Turkey and Greece in 2015. He is scheduled to lead a delegation to Taiwan in late 2016.
Following Taylor’s first year (2011) in the General Assembly, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce declared Tom “Rookie Legislator of the Year” for his support of pro-business, pro-free market principles. He has received numerous other awards from the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, the Georgia Retail Association, the Georgia Code Enforcement Association, and Georgia CASA.
Taylor was a founding board member of Citizens for Dunwoody, Inc and served as Vice President and then President. Tom was a leader in the legislative process and incorporation effort for Dunwoody. He set the political strategy and created the Dunwoody Action Committee PAC.
In 2008 Tom was elected to Dunwoody’s initial City Council and was instrumental in the successful startup of the new government.
He led multiple initiatives during the city’s planning and implementation process. He served as Chairman of the Police Task Force. Tom’s proudest accomplishment as he left for the State House was that the new city of Dunwoody had improved service delivery and responsiveness without raising a single tax or fee.
In 2016, Dunwoody moved into its eighth consecutive year of operations, and had a budget surplus every year and operating at the same millage rate since the day of incorporation.
Taylor was lead advocate for the city in the Georgia General Assembly that resulted in passage of HB-203 in the 2010 session. This legislation transferred the county-owned parks and other properties within the city limits to Dunwoody, as well as $7 million in bond proceeds for Brook Run, Dunwoody’s largest park.
Tom Taylor was instrumental in the creation of the City of Dunwoody. Here, he celebrates the conversion of park land inside of city limits to Dunwoody and the creation of the Parks & Recreation program. Taylor drove HB-203 through the Georgia General Assembly to make Dunwoody Parks a reality.
Representative Taylor brings extensive, business and financial management experience to the table.
He began his civilian career in the telecom industry with AT&T. Then Tom transitioned to the defense and military contracting industries in the early 1990’s.
Taylor had senior management roles with Rockwell International Tactical Systems, Boeing and DynCorp International, where he managed a variety of defense and intelligence programs with multi-million dollar budgets for both the U.S. government and international government and corporate customers.
Taylor is a veteran of the United States Navy, with 21 years of combined active and reserve service globally on every continent. He earned an undergraduate degree from Georgia State University in International Relations and Economics and an MBA in International Business.
In addition to Citizens for Dunwoody and later Dunwoody City Council, Taylor served as a board member on the Dunwoody Homeowners Association and the Executive Committee of the DeKalb Republican Party.
He has served as a board member as well as both as Vice President and President of the Georgia Wildlife Club.
He has worked as a parent volunteer at Kingsley Charter Elementary and Peachtree Charter Middle Schools.
He coached youth soccer at the Ashford-Dunwoody YMCA for 18 seasons.
Tom Taylor is a native of Boca Raton, Florida and has lived in Dunwoody for 28 years. He and his wife of almost 32 years, Wendi, have a 24-year-old son Keith.
The Taylors have also hosted and served as a cultural liaison for foreign exchange students from Thailand, Germany, Brazil, Egypt, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. This year they have a 17-year-old hosted daughter Aidana, who is from Kazakhstan and is currently a junior at Dunwoody High School.