FedEx founder Fred Smith, a Marine Corps veteran who revolutionised package delivery, dies at 80
MEMPHIS: 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.
Smith, a 1966 graduate of Yale University, used a business theory he came up with in college to create a delivery system based on coordinated air cargo flights centered 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 a greater use of time-sensitive deliveries and less dependence on large inventories and warehouses.
Smith once told The Associated Press that he came up with the name Federal Express because he wanted the company to sound big and important when in fact it was a start-up operation with a future far from assured.
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