North Valley dad Casey Taylor, founder and owner of Mortgage Consultant Network and Taylor Elite Group, grew up middle class in Tucson. As the middle son of three boys all close in age, you could say their parents had their hands full, and sports ruled Casey and his siblings’ worlds.

“We didn’t have cellphones back then to sit on 24 hours a day,” laughed Taylor. “But we had sports. Soccer was my sport, but I did it all. From soccer to baseball to basketball and even golf, one season rolled into the next.”

Upon entering high school, Casey threw lifting and running track into the mix, and that’s where he learned the value of hard work to improve your craft.

While attending Sabino High School in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Taylor excelled especially at soccer and football. His high school football team would go on to win the state championship in 1990.

Taylor would graduate from high school 1991, and now it was time to hang up the cleats and set his focus on his future as he enrolled at Arizona State University.

“It was always clear cut for me that I would be an attorney or go into to business” says Taylor. “Ahead of beginning at ASU, I worked at a law office where I got to see the ends and outs of the business and quickly realized it wasn’t the career for me.”

After realizing the career of an attorney wasn’t as glamorous as he once thought, Taylor changed paths and pursued a major in business administration and management.

Becoming an Entrepreneur

After graduating from ASU in 1996, Taylor had big plans to start a business, but just like sports, he realized that starting your own business involves a lot of hard work and conditioning beforehand.

“As a new college graduate, I lacked the capital, experience and plan to start a business,” says Taylor. “So I took a position at Wells Fargo to begin getting a feel for the business industry.”

Over the next several years, Taylor would continue to work in banking and also begin investing in real estate, including rental homes.

By 2000, he decided to invest more into himself and began studying for his MBA.

“As I worked toward my MBA, I began to transition more into the mortgage side of banking,” says Taylor. “I didn’t know it at the time but beginning my career in banking was manifesting into something bigger than I could have ever imagined.”

In 2005, Taylor made the move to start his own mortgage business, Mortgage Consultants

Network, a business that still runs today.

“I knew that one day I would be involved with a business,” says Taylor. “But if you would have told me at 17 or 18 that I would start a mortgage business, I would have laughed at you and probably said ‘I don’t even know what a mortgage is.’”

By 2015, Taylor added a second business, Taylor Elite Group.

Taylor Elite Group’s primary focus is educating and empowering buyers and sellers on their rights, their options and the best decisions for them and their families when it comes to real estate, one of the biggest investments in anyone’s life.

“When I look back, everything pieces together in my life,” says Taylor. “In the moment, I might not have been able to see the path forward, but now I know it was always very clear.”

Family Life

Now a father to two teenagers, Ella and Keston, Taylor and his wife, Michele have their hands full with a sports loving family of their own. Talk about full circle (but this time with cell phones)!

“Ella has been doing competitive dance for forever and is on the pom-squad at her high school,” says Taylor. “Keston is just like me playing all sports including earning his brown belt in karate.”

Although Taylor hung up his cleats years ago, between spending time with his family and supporting his children in their sports, he still does competitive mountain bike riding and has assisted coached his son’s football season.

“Growing up, my dad coached my soccer team and never missed any of mine or my brother’s games,” says Taylor. “Looking back I value that time that my dad spent with me to make me a better player, and I look forward to continuing to give that to my children.”

For more on Casey, visit www.ctmovingaz.com.

Written by: Autumn Jarrett

Autumn Jarrett earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism with an emphasis in public relations and a certificate in marketing and sales from Arizona State University, before joining HMA Public Relations in 2019. Originally from Decatur, Ill., Jarrett moved to Arizona to attend ASU without ever visiting the campus or even the state of Arizona.