FedEx founder and former CEO Fred Smith dies aged 80 | EUROtoday

Fred Smith, founding father of the US parcel supply big Federal Express, has died on the age of 80, the corporate has introduced.

Mr Smith based the agency in 1973 having beforehand served within the US Marine Corps. He ran the corporate as CEO till 2022.

“Fred was more than just the pioneer of an industry and the founder of our great company. He was the heart and soul of FedEx,” present boss Raj Subramaniam wrote in a memo to workers.

Born in 1944, Mr Smith began FedEx with 389 workers and 14 small planes that carried 186 packages from Memphis to 25 cities throughout the US.

FedEx now has greater than 500,000 staff throughout the globe and delivers hundreds of thousands of packages a day.

Its operations contain 705 plane and 200,000 autos, in line with its web site.

“He was a mentor to many and a source of inspiration to all. He was also a proud father, grandfather, husband, Marine, and friend,” Mr Subramaniam mentioned.

Mr Smith joined the US Marine Corps as a second lieutenant after graduating from Yale University.

He served two excursions in Vietnam and was awarded medals for bravery and wounds acquired in fight earlier than leaving the army as a captain in 1969.

Mr Smith used a enterprise idea he got here up with whereas at Yale to create what’s now often called a hub and spoke supply system.

Such a community depends on co-ordinated cargo flights centred round a most important hub – which Mr Smith arrange in Memphis, Tennessee, which stays FedEx’s base.

While well-known in Memphis, Mr Smith lived a life comparatively out of the highlight – though he did make a cameo look within the Tom Hanks film Castaway through which a FedEx worker is stranded on an island after a airplane crash.