newsworthy
20 DC VELOCITY DECEMBER 2014 www.dcvelocity.com
The U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) board of governors made history by naming
Megan J. Brennan, the agency’s executive vice president and chief operating
officer, the first woman postmaster general in the postal service’s 222 years
of operation.
Brennan, 52, takes over in February and also assumes the title of CEO. She
succeeds Patrick R. Donahoe, 59, who retires after 39 years with the agency.
Brennan becomes the 74th head of USPS. She is also the fourth consecutive
postmaster general to come out of USPS’s operations.
USPS traces its roots to the Second Continental Congress in 1775,
when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The
Post Office Department was formed in 1792 as a cabinet-level agency. It
was transformed into its present-day operation in 1971 under the Postal
Reorganization Act.
Brennan joined USPS in 1986 as a letter carrier in Lancaster, Pa. She began
her managerial career as a delivery and collection supervisor. She was named
to her current position in December 2010, two months after Donahoe was
appointed postmaster general. Brennan was not made available for an inter-
view but said in a statement that the appointment is “an honor of a lifetime.”
Brennan oversees the daily workings of a network with 491,000 career
employees, 200,000 delivery vehicles, and more than 31,000 facilities.
Transportation operations and delivery services fall under her purview.
USPS spends about $6 billion a year on transportation services.
AGENT OF CHANGE
During her nearly four-year tenure as head of operations, Brennan implemented operational changes to transform USPS’s image from letter carrier
to a parcel delivery company that transports the majority of merchandise
ordered online. Since 2012, USPS has expanded service options for its
“Priority Mail” delivery services, while in some cases shrinking delivery times
to as little as one day for what historically had been a two- to three-day service. It began Sunday deliveries for e-tailing giant Amazon.com in what may
become part of a broader effort to deliver packages seven days a week, up
from the current six-day-a-week limit. (USPS is offering package deliveries
seven days a week during the holiday shipping season.)
In September, USPS launched a program cutting Priority Mail rates
for large shippers while foregoing a shift to dimensional weight pricing,
something UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp.’s ground parcel unit will adopt for
all ground shipments by early 2015. USPS maintains a strong position in
the “last-mile” delivery business, where carriers and parcel consolidators
leverage its universal service mandate to tender packages for the trip from
destination post offices to residences.
Brennan supervised this transition amid the constant pressures of driving
down costs to align with the continuing decline in first-class mail, USPS’s
most profitable product. Since 2005, USPS has reduced its total network of
processing facilities to 318 from 657. It also has 220,000 fewer employees
today than it did in 2004. One tailwind has been a reduction in transportation
costs that come from supporting a smaller footprint of processing centers, as
well as from better fleet utilization, Donahoe said in a press conference.
—M.S.
Brennan named first woman
postmaster general
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Insight, Crane Worldwide
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Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift
America Inc. (MCFA), a manufacturer of forklifts under the
Cat lift trucks, Mitsubishi forklift
trucks, and Jungheinrich brands,
has recognized Wisconsin
Lift Truck Corp., located in
Brookfield, Wis., as a 2014
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Health retained the top spot in
Gartner Inc.’s Healthcare Supply
Chain Top 25 for the fourth
consecutive year. … Banneker
Industries, a provider of integrated logistics and supply chain
management solutions, was one
of 17 companies nominated
for the 2014 Class III National
Supplier of the Year award by
the National Minority Supplier
Development Council. … I.D.
Systems Inc., a provider of wireless machine-to-machine (M2M)
asset management solutions, has
been ranked 308th on Deloitte’s
“Technology Fast 500” list, a
ranking of the fastest-growing
public and private technology
companies in North America.
… Roll-up door manufacturer
DBCI’s Chandler, Ariz., manufacturing facility completed its
fifth consecutive year without a
single recordable injury.
accolades
