Fred Smith, the FedEx founder who revolutionised the express delivery industry, has died aged 80.
FedEx started operating in 1973, delivering small parcels and documents more quickly than the US postal service could.
Over the next half-century, Mr Smith, a veteran US Marine, oversaw the growth of a company that combined air and ground service and became something of an economic bellwether because so many other companies rely on it.
Based in Memphis, Tennessee, FedEx grew into a global transportation and logistics company that averages 17 million shipments per business day.
Mr Smith stepped down as chief executive in 2022 but remained executive chairman.
A 1966 graduate of Yale University, he used a business theory he came up with in college to create a delivery system based on co-ordinated 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 a greater use of time-sensitive deliveries and less dependence on large inventories and warehouses.
Mr 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.
At the time, he was trying to land a major shipping contract with the Federal Reserve Bank that did not work out.
In the beginning, Federal Express had 14 small aircraft operating from Memphis International Airport flying packages to 25 US cities.
Mr Smith’s father, also named Frederick, built a small fortune in Memphis with a regional bus line and other business ventures.
Following college, Mr Smith junior joined the US Marines and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He left the military as a captain in 1969 after two tours in Vietnam where he was decorated for bravery and wounds received in combat.
He told The Associated Press in a 2023 interview that everything he did running FedEx came from his experience in the Marines, not 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 have a fleet of planes and a system of interconnecting air routes in place from the start.
Though one of Memphis’s best-known and most prominent citizens, Mr Smith generally avoided the public spotlight, devoting his energies to work and family.
But despite his low profile, he made a cameo appearance in the 2000 movie Castaway starring Tom Hanks. The movie was about a FedEx employee stranded on an island.
“Memphis has lost its most important citizen, Fred Smith,” said US representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee, citing the FedEx’s founder’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.”
