FedEx founder Fred Smith, a Marine Corps veteran who revolutionised package delivery, dies at 80
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE: Fred Smith, the FedEx Corp founder who revolutionised the express delivery industry, has died, the company said. He was 80.
FedEx started operating in 1973, delivering small parcels and documents more quickly than the postal service. Over the next half-century, Smith, a Marine Corps veteran, oversaw the growth of a company that became something of an economic bellwether because so many other companies rely on it.
Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx became a global transportation and logistics company that averages 17 million shipments per business day. Smith stepped down as CEO in 2022 but remained executive chairman.
A 1966 graduate of Yale University, Smith used a business theory he devised in college to create a delivery system based on coordinated air cargo flights centred on a main hub – a “hub and spokes” system, as it became known.
The company also played a major role in the shift by American business and industry to greater reliance on time-sensitive deliveries and less dependence on large inventories and warehouses.
Smith once told The Associated Press that he chose the name Federal Express because he wanted the company to sound big and important, even though it was a start-up with an uncertain future. At the time, he was trying to secure a major shipping contract with the Federal Reserve Bank that did not work out.
In its early days, Federal Express operated 14 small aircraft from Memphis International Airport, flying packages to 25 US cities.
Smith’s father, also named Frederick, built a small fortune in Memphis with a regional bus line and other business ventures. After college, Smith joined the US Marines and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He left the military as a captain in 1969 after two tours in Vietnam, where he was decorated for bravery and wounded in combat.
In a 2023 interview with The Associated Press, he said that everything he did running FedEx was influenced by his experience in the Marines rather than what he learned at Yale.
Getting Federal Express started was no easy task. Overnight shipments were new to American business, and the company had to secure a fleet of planes and a network of interconnecting air routes from the outset.
Although one of Memphis’s best-known and most prominent citizens, Smith generally avoided the public spotlight, devoting his energies to work and family. Despite his low profile, he made a cameo in the 2000 film “Cast Away”, starring Tom Hanks, which depicted a FedEx employee stranded on an island.
US Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said, “Memphis has lost its most important citizen, Fred Smith,” citing Smith’s support for everything from the University of Memphis to the city’s zoo. “FedEx is the engine of our economy, and Fred Smith was its visionary founder. But more than that, he was a dedicated citizen who cared deeply about our city.”
Smith rarely publicised the donations he and his family made, but in 2023 he spoke to AP about a gift to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to endow a new scholarship fund for the children of Navy service members pursuing studies in STEM. He said, “America is the most generous country in the world. It is amazing, the charitable contributions that Americans make every year – everything from the smallest things to these massive healthcare initiatives and the Gates Foundation and everything in between. I think if you have done well in this country, it is pretty churlish of you not to at least be willing to give a pretty good portion of that back to the public interest. And all this is in the great tradition of American philanthropy.”
By RSS/AP
