Since Taylor Rowan, founder of Taylor’d Containers, pivoted to fabricating customized shipping containers for firefighting training three years ago, business has boomed. 

Taylor’d Containers, a tradename for Taylor’d Systems LLC, is projected to generate $8 million in revenue in 2025, more than doubling 2024’s revenue of $3.5 million and $1.5 million in 2023, Rowan says. 

“It’s been a really good few years,” Rowan says. “We bought our facility a year ago, and we’ve already outgrown it.” 

The Journal first reported on Taylor'd Containers in August of 2022 when the company was in the early stages of designing and fabricating firefighting training props. 

The Spokane Valley-based company, now located at 12802 E. Indiana and visible from Interstate 90 east of Pines Road, designs compact firefighting training props out of shipping containers that offer multifunctional features to help enhance firefighter skills in emergency situations.

While fire may evoke the image of flames and intense heat, Taylor’d fire training props don't involve the use of live fire, he says. Most training firefighters need involves using force to enter doors, learning how to cut rebars off windows with specialized tools, and training for hanging from second-story windows, among other skills, he says. 

Because the custom training props are mobile and come in a range of sizes, fire departments can use them on site, instead of driving to training facilities or building stationary and more expensive onsite structures. 

“It’s basically a pocketknife,” Rowan says. “Maybe it doesn’t go to the extent of some of these larger training devices, but it gets training done on one small spot.” 

Taylor’d Containers was founded in 2017. Since then, the company has grown to 24 staff, including an operations manager, sales, and a full-time drafter. The company has also added a quality department and an inventory control department. In the summer, the company will have its first interns, one from Washington State University and the other from Oregon State University, Rowan says. 

Rowan has also hired two veteran firefighters to help consult on the training props: Justin Capaul, battalion chief with Kootenai County Fire & Rescue, and Steven Jones, fire captain and paramedic for the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department. Both men have 25 years of experience as firefighters, respectively, and are the owners of 2nd Due Training, an organization that does on-site training for fire departments.  The firefighters are not full-time employees but participate in meetings, product reviews, and showcase the company’s props during their training at regional fire stations. 

“They travel our prop around from station to station and train other departments on that,” Rowan says. 

The firefighter training props, dubbed the Taylor’d Prop Series, come in four sizes: 12, 20, 40, and 40 plus. Each number signals the prop size in feet.

The smallest prop, series 12 features over 10 training apparatuses, and is easy enough for two people to maneuver around a parking lot or move onto a truck. The series 20 has all the same training apparatuses as the series 12 and includes Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus training, known as SCBA, a specialized training for firefighters and first responders who work in hazardous atmospheres and or confined spaces.  

The series 40 builds on the previous two models and includes enhanced window and hatch training elements, Rowan says. The series 40 plus has a 20-foot container stacked on top that offers the amenities of a training tower, such as repelling and evacuating from a third-story window, he says. 

The props start at $59,000 for a series 12 and up to $165,000 for the 40-plus system. Rowan says there are a lot of grant opportunities for fire departments that fall under $60,000. 

“I’d say probably 75% of our props have been free for fire departments due to different grant opportunities that they’ve gone through,” he says. 

The company builds about six props a month and has sold them across the country, including Alaska, and is getting ready to send its first prop to Hawaii, he says. The company also has a presence in Canada. 

Rowan’s initial vision was to sell and lease commercial containers. He purchased a commercial container, posted it on Craigslist, and was surprised by the interest he received. 

“I got absolutely blown up by people who wanted to just purchase a container for onsite storage,” he says. “I thought, well, maybe there’s a market for this.” 

For the first couple of years, he was solely selling shipping containers, up to 10 a week and making good returns, he says.  The company then transitioned to custom fabrication, adding doors, windows, and side containers, he says.  

“My thought process was I wanted to build cool stuff like houses and coffee stands,” he says. 

In 2019, he received a request from the Airway Heights Fire Department for a quote for a training facility on the West Plains to build a training prop, followed by another request from Newman Lake Fire Rescue. Rowan designed a training prop for the Airway Heights Fire Department, which led to more opportunities to design training props for other fire departments in Spokane Valley, he says. 

The pivot in his business came at an opportune time, as the price of shipping containers skyrocketed during the pandemic, he says. The company still rents and sells commercial containers, but the market has been flooded with others in the region that have begun selling shipping containers.

In growing his business, Rowan says being surrounded by the right people has been instrumental. He’s received help and guidance from the Spokane offices of Eide Bailey LLP and received a Small Business Administration 504 Program loan through Washington Trust Bank that helped him purchase the company’s current facility. 

“A couple of local key businesses and the collaboration of everybody here has been the biggest reason why this whole thing is doing what it’s doing,” he says. “The fire departments here locally have been huge.” 

Next, he hopes to enter the European market, where compact training props like the ones Taylor’d designs don't yet exist.  

“Europe is kind of our two-year goal,” he says.