Fred Smith, FedEx founder who revolutionized the package delivery business, dies at 80

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — 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 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.

At the time, Smith was trying to land a major shipping contract with the Federal Reserve Bank that didn’t work out.

In the beginning, Federal Express had 14 small aircraft operating out of the Memphis International Airport flying packages to 25 U.S. cities.

Smith’s father, also named Frederick, built a small fortune in Memphis with a regional bus line and other business ventures. Following college, Smith joined the U.S. 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 get-go.

Though one of Memphis’ best-known and most prominent citizens, Smith generally avoided the public spotlight, devoting his energies to work and family.

Despite his low profile, Smith 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 U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, 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 publicized the donations he and his family made, but he agreed to speak with AP in 2023 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.

“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.”