Fred Smith, the FedEx Corp. founder who revolutionized the express delivery industry, has died, the company said
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Fred Smith, the FedEx Corp. founder who revolutionized 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 post office could. Over the next half-century, Smith, a Marine Corp. veteran, 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.
Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx grew into a global transportation and logistics company that averages 17 million shipments per business day. Smith step 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.
Smith rarely publicized the donations he and his family made, but he agreed to speak with AP in 2023 about a gift to the Marine corp scholarship to endow a new scholarship fund for the children of Navy service members pursuing studies in STEM.
“The thing that’s interested me are the institutions and the causes not the naming or the recognition,” Smith said at the time.
Asked what it means to contribute to the public good, he replied:
“America is the most generous country in the world. It’s amazing the charitable contributions that Americans make every year. Everything from the smallest things to these massive health care initiatives and the Gates Foundation and everything in between,” he said. “I think if you’ve done well in this country, it’s pretty churlish for 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.”
