Tag: Fred Smith

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At Large Opinion

Hail Mary #8

Did you hear the big news?

Memphis is going to get a USFL team! The USFL, in case you’re not familiar with the latest iteration (I wasn’t), is a professional football league that had its debut season last spring with eight teams, all of which played their games in Birmingham, Alabama — which is weird, since the teams were supposedly affiliated with other cities. The Philadelphia Stars take on the Pittsburgh Maulers in Alabama in April? How does that setup not draw huge crowds?

Anyway, next spring, according to a newly signed agreement (obtained by the Daily Memphian via an FOIA request) between the city of Memphis, Liberty Stadium managers Global Spectrum, and the USFL, Memphis gets a piece of this sweet gridiron action. The new Memphis Showboats will play in the Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, along with the possibly mighty Houston Gamblers, who will also call Memphis their home field. (When the Gamblers and the Showboats hook up, will both teams wear home uniforms? Tune in next spring and find out!) The Showboats will mostly be made up of players from the now-defunct Tampa Bay Bandits USFL team, which folded after one season.

Dear reader, you may be forgiven if you are less than enthralled. I am myself extraordinarily underwhelmed. They should have called this team the Memphis Deja Vu because we’ve all been here before. Memphis is no stranger to start-up, wonky-league football teams, having been home to no less than seven through the years. Let me refresh your memory, in case you don’t still have the souvenir jerseys: Memphis Southmen, WFL (1974-75); Memphis Showboats, USFL (1984-85); Memphis Mad Dogs, CFL (1995); Tennessee Oilers, NFL (1997); Memphis Maniax, XFL (2001); Memphis Express, AAF (2019). This list doesn’t include the Memphis Pharaohs, an Arena League team that played in the Pyramid for a season in the 1990s.

Suffice it to say that all Memphis professional football teams should be required to have the words “The Short-Lived” above the team name on the jerseys. Two years for a Memphis pro football team is an “era.”

Reportedly, the prime mover for this latest Excellent Adventure in Football Fantasy is FedEx founder and chairman Fred Smith, who, bless his heart, has wanted a professional football franchise for his home city for decades. Remember the Memphis Hound Dogs, the city’s well-funded 1990s Hail Mary pass at the NFL? Smith was part of that ownership group, along with cotton magnate Billy Dunavant, billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, and Elvis Presley Enterprises. Despite the undeniably rockin’ name and lots of money, Memphis lost out to the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers, who had the good sense to choose cat names.

Smith then became part of the ownership group of the (obligatory “short-lived” descriptor goes here) CFL Memphis Mad Dogs, who entertained the city, sort of, for one season. Oh, Canada.

Anyway, at last week’s announcement, when Smith and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland posed awkwardly, jointly holding an orange-ish football and wearing too-small Memphis Showboat hats, it had a kabuki theater, been-here-done-this feel. Lord help us. Who’s fired up for April minor-league football, y’all? Show of hands.

By all accounts, the city’s financial commitment to this silliness is fairly minimal: some minor upgrades to the stadium and providing office and practice space to the team — which is apparently going to be the Pipkin building. The last time most Memphians were there was when we were driving through to get Covid shots in 2020. Good times!

It should be noted for historical purposes that the original USFL lasted three (whoo!) entire seasons (1983-85). Three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners signed with the league, including Georgia senatorial candidate Herschel Walker (who said last week he would rather be a werewolf than a vampire). The league played its games in the spring for two seasons, but one influential team owner pushed relentlessly for the league to shift its games to the fall. “If God wanted football in the spring,” the owner said, closing his case, “he wouldn’t have created baseball.”

The ensuing move to a fall schedule doomed the league, which could not compete for fans or TV eyeballs with the NFL and college football. The owner whose business acumen destroyed the original USFL? It was New Jersey Generals owner Donald J. Trump. A stable genius, even back then.

Go Showboats.

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News News Blog News Feature

Fred Smith to Step Down as FedEx CEO

Fred Smith (Credit: FedEx Corp.)

One of Memphis’ most famous companies is about to have a new leader at the helm. In a press release Monday, FedEx announced that, effective June 1, 2022, founder, CEO, and chairman Frederick W. Smith will step down from his position as CEO. He will be succeeded by FedEx president and COO Raj Subramaniam.

“FedEx has changed the world by connecting people and possibilities for the last 50 years,” Smith said. “As we look toward what’s next, I have a great sense of satisfaction that a leader of the caliber of Raj Subramaniam will take FedEx into a very successful future. In my role as Executive Chairman, I look forward to focusing on Board governance as well as issues of global importance, including sustainability, innovation, and public policy.”

Prior to his role as president and COO, Subramaniam was the president and CEO of FedEx Express, and has held plenty of other positions within the organization since joining in 1991.

“Fred is a visionary leader and a legend of the business world,” Subramaniam said. “He founded one of the world’s greatest and most admired companies, and it is my honor and privilege to step into this role and build upon what he has created. As we continue to transform as a company and reimagine what’s next, we will keep our people-service-profit philosophy at our core. I am immensely proud of our 600,000 team members around the world. Together we’ve set into motion ideas that have changed the world for the better, and together we will unlock new value for our people, customers, and shareholders.”

Raj Subramaniam (Credit: FedEx Corp.)

Since helping incorporate the business in 1971, Smith has spent the majority of his career as chairman and CEO of FedEx, turning it into a titan of the transportation and delivery industry. He will remain with the company as executive chairman.

Greater Memphis Chamber president and CEO Beverly Robertson also paid tribute to the longtime business leader.

“From a college class to a global brand, Fred Smith took the kernel of an idea and made it resonate around the world,” Robertson said in a statement Monday. “I feel a deep sense of civic pride every time I fly into Memphis and see row upon row of FedEx airplanes. Because of his profound vision, he’s leaving a powerful legacy that has forever changed the trajectory of this company and this city. We will continue to owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for his contributions to Memphis.

“Fred Smith couldn’t leave his legacy in better hands than those of his successor. We look forward to seeing Raj Subramaniam continue to build on the solid foundation laid by Fred Smith, whose impact will be felt in Memphis for generations to come.”

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News News Blog

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount

FedEx Corp.

FedEx Corp. won’t roll back discounts to the National Rifle Association (NRA) but says its positions on gun policy differ from the gun rights group.

The Memphis issued a statement about its now-controversial NRA discounts Monday, after hours of silence and an avalanche of criticism.

Here’s the company’s statement issued late Monday afternoon from communication advisor Jim Masilak:

FedEx Responds to Questions on the National Rifle Association, Gun Safety and Policy
“FedEx Corporation’s positions on the issues of gun policy and safety differ from those of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

FedEx opposes assault rifles being in the hands of civilians. While we strongly support the constitutional right of U.S. citizens to own firearms subject to appropriate background checks, FedEx views assault rifles and large capacity magazines as an inherent potential danger to schools, workplaces, and communities when such weapons are misused.

We therefore support restricting them to the military. Most important, FedEx believes urgent action is required at the local, state, and Federal level to protect schools and students from incidents such as the horrific tragedy in Florida on February 14th.
FedEx Corp.

FedEx is a common carrier under federal law and therefore does not and will not deny service or discriminate against any legal entity regardless of their policy positions or political views.

The NRA is one of hundreds of organizations in our alliances/association marketing program whose members receive discounted rates for FedEx shipping. FedEx has never set or changed rates for any of our millions of customers around the world in response to their politics, beliefs or positions on issues.”

[pullquote-1] FedEx Corp.

The company’s response came after hours of silence on the issue and after many companies had already cut ties with the NRA. That silence led to speculation, ridicule, and a massive online backlash to FedEx.

For example, while the media and social media storm swirled around FedEx, this was the tweet at the top of the company’s feed:

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (4)

Meanwhile, #boycottfedex raged on Twitter with tweets like these:

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (5)

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (7)

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (6)

FedEx tweeted its response to the NRA scandal Monday afternoon:

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (8)

While Fedex sat on the sidelines for so long, the NRA took to the frontlines of Twitter with tweets like these:

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (3)

FedEx Won’t Cut NRA Discount (2)

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Opinion The BruceV Blog

FedEx’s Fred Smith: Tax Me.

FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith just threw some cold water on the GOP’s insistence that “taxing the rich” will hurt the economy.

Speaking on CNN, Smith called the idea that raising the tax rate for the nation’s top earners will hurt the economy “mythology.”

Huffington Post has the video.

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Opinion

No Denying It: Memphis Will Take a FedEx Hit

Fred Smith

  • Fred Smith

“It’s been said many times that the only certainty in life is change. That’s been true in my life and the life of FedEx. No matter what’s happening in our industry now, it won’t be the same 10 years from now.”

So said FedEx founder Fred Smith in May in a speech to the Wings Club in New York City titled “Air Cargo: Back to the Future” that played off the 1985 movie with Michael J. Fox as time traveler Marty McFly. Someone thought enough of the speech to put it in a hardcover book distributed at the 2012 Investors and Lenders Meeting at the Hilton this week. Only 16 pages, including pictures and charts, it gives as concise a history of the forces that drove the growth of FedEx (and therefore Memphis indirectly) as you will find.

The Big Change (“a really big deal,” Smith said) coming up is the company’s plan to achieve $1.7 billion in annual profit improvement by the end of fiscal year 2016. The shareholders’ gain will, to some extent, be Memphis’s loss. A salaried FedEx employee who takes a voluntary buyout is probably a Shelby County resident with a six-figure family income, a house, maybe kids in private schools, possibly a Grizzlies season-ticket buyer, a leader in his or her community, a donor to charities, and someone with the mobility to move somewhere else. Multiply by several hundred and it’s a big ripple effect. More jobs at the SuperHub won’t offset that.

How big? Imagine if the news had been of a different nature. Substitute thousands of “hires” for “voluntary buyouts” and “expansion” for “cost reductions”. Keep the focus on Tennessee, and leave in the uncertainty about the timing and extent of the change if you like. Now imagine the reaction of local politicians and a chamber of commerce that was ready to break out the sombreros and the mariachi band for an expansion of air service to Mexico that never happened. Cartwheels, anyone?

If Memphis was a stock its price would be down today. How much? I’d say about five percent, which was roughly the increase in the price of FedEx stock on Wednesday after the opening salvos of the upbeat two-day conference for investors and lenders. Stock price, of course, reflects current and future earnings.

This week showed Fred Smith as salesman and head coach as well as CEO. He gave the keynote speech Tuesday night and moderated Wednesday’s closing panel discussion and Q & A with analysts. It was the founder of a great company giving his vision and putting his heart into it, like Steve Jobs at Apple or Bill Gates at Microsoft. There were Power Points for sure, but there were also flashes of humor, as when he said “Raymond who” to Raymond James analyst Art Hatfield, formerly of Morgan Keegan. There was testiness, as when, with eyes blazing like coals above a frown, he chided a questioner about his characterization of “decline, decline, decline” in one segment of FedEx’s business. But mostly there was confidence and an air of command on display before a group of analysts, many of whom looked like they weren’t born when Federal Express was founded in 1970.

“I don’t have any plans to retire at the moment, and I certainly want to see this plan through,” Smith said in response to a question Wednesday.

The stock market is about telling stories to analysts and lenders who can in turn tell them to brokers, investors and other lenders. FedEx top brass gave them a compelling story at a time when the domestic economy and its own stock is in a funk, and was rewarded with an immediate boost in its stock price and a spike in those fanciful but irresistible long-range “price targets” up to $150. FedEx breached $100 a share in 2006 and 2007 and has not crossed that milestone since. In 2009 you could have had it for $42. If you bought then, you’ve doubled your money, but if you’re a long time buy-and-hold investor the stock delivered modest returns.

For context, here are a few excerpts from Smith’s “Back to the Future” speech:

“The 747 air freighter gave air cargo a starring role in the air transportation system, instead of its being an after-thought in the underbellies of passenger planes. Now, finally, you had the plane to carry computers, electronics, and other high value perishables such as flowers across vast distances.”

“As the 747 began to dominate long-haul services, an upstart network called Federal Express began flying from Memphis in spring 1973 with less than 200 packages rattling around in 14 small Dassault Falcons going to 25 cities on its first day.”

“We understood at FedEx that information about the package is as important as the package itself, so we also originated the first tracking system.”

“There’s a cloud hanging over today’s industrial horizon — the high price of oil. I’ll never forget the effect of 1973’s embargo on a fledgling FedEx. We almost went under before we’d barely begun . . . In 1999 oil was $16 a barrel. In 2008 it was $147 a barrel — a 900% increase.”

“Let’s compare a 747 and a large container ship. For the ship it takes one ton of fuel to move 330 tons of cargo. For the plane, it takes about 330 tons of fuel to move the same amount of cargo . . . All those big ships are nibbling away at the air cargo business, and those bites will become bigger when the Panama Canal expansion is completed in 2014.”

“Bigger commodity consignments are increasingly moving by sea, and dedicated express networks and underbellies are capturing more urgent, lighter shipments. So in many ways the future of air cargo is akin to the early days of the industry.”

“The takeaway from this evolution of the air cargo industry is that the air express sector will continue to grown long-term as the integration of the world’s economies generate more small shipments moving directly from point of production to the end user.”

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Opinion

Local Impact of “Voluntary Buyouts” at FedEx Is Unclear

David Bronczek

  • David Bronczek

Midway through its two-day Investors and Lenders Meeting, FedEx was already seeing signs that its cost-cutting plans and fighting stance toward competitor UPS were a big hit.

Shortly after the stock market opened on Wednesday, FedEx stock was up $4.50, or 5 percent, while UPS had barely budged and the Dow was down 45 points. If you’re an investor, you’re happy. If you’re a Memphian or a local FedEx employee, however, you might still be wondering what the impact of the announced “voluntary buyouts” and plan to “reduce fixed headcount by several thousand people,” as CEO Fred Smith said Tuesday, will be closer to home.

We’ll have to wait to find out. David Bronczek, president and CEO of FedEx Express, said Wednesday the buyouts will be offered to certain U.S. employees but details won’t be spelled out until the second half of the 2013 fiscal year.

“The overall U.S. domestic market has matured,” said Bronczek.

He said the company is already reducing flight hours and the number of full-time hourly employees in the U.S. by 3 percent. He gave two examples — Houston, where FedEx closed five stations and replaced them with two, and Atlanta, where some service was rerouted to the two FedEx national hubs, one of which, of course, is Memphis. So call it a mixed message. But anyone who has heard the word “voluntary buyout” in the last four years — let’s say, oh, in the newspaper business — might get a little fearful about what happens if there aren’t enough volunteers in the Volunteer State.

Questions about staffing in a follow-up session didn’t pry out any more information. The analysts and investors, of course, have a different focus than Memphians. FedEx, which will mark its 40th anniversary next year, has some 30,000 employees in the area (an estimate that gets no quarrel from the public relations department) including a big share of its 4,300 pilots, is a corporate angel, and dominates the airport. We get a disproportionate benefit from growth, and, possibly, a bigger hit from contraction.

Like Mitt Romney pounding Barack Obama in the first debate, FedEx top brass went after UPS. The message: FedEx is faster, smarter, greener, leaner, and more reliable in each of its five divisions and grabbing market share from the guys in brown.

“The key to success if putting the right products in the right networks,” said Michael Glenn, president and CEO of FedEx Services. And more than once he emphasized that “not all freight is good freight” and FedEx will let some accounts walk if they are unprofitable.

On Tuesday, Smith announced plans targeting annual profitability improvement of $1.7 billion during the next three years, with a significant part of that coming by fiscal 2015. He also said the company plans to increase its dividends in years to come, but with a payout of a fraction of 1 percent FedEx is not really a dividend play. Its appeal is its global story and its swagger.

Walking into a FedEx Investors and Lenders meeting, where some 200 guests dined on barbecue and beer at the Hilton Hotel Tuesday night, is a little like that dream where you have a big exam in ten minutes and haven’t cracked a book. One of the presentations Tuesday evening was titled “Four Horsemen of Dominant Design.” Delivered without notes by chief information officer Robert Carter, it was a 25-minute dazzler about innovations from the gauge of railroads to cloud computing and online music.

I’m glad I won’t be quizzed. One of the most interesting parts was when Carter posed what he called a child’s riddle: would you rather have a penny that doubled every day for a month or $1 million right away?
Taking the easy cash is a sucker play because by the 30th day you’re collecting over $5 million (I had a friend who teaches math at MUS verify this). The growth curve of that penny stays flat for the first few weeks then bends upward like the letter “J.” The point being that fabulous riches await those with patience and a dominant design after the big shakeout. Or something like that.

Anyway, for all the corporate-speak about new verticals, yield curves, global trade, value propositions and “triple sevens” (777 aircraft), I would bet a penny that this little fable, along with the old Smith magic, had as much as anything to do with that $4.50 bump in the stock price.

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Opinion

Summer Special on Special School Districts

A dispute among the parties

  • A dispute among the parties

Must Improvise.

Good advice for anyone involved with or following the school systems merger story. Going into the home stretch, here’s what I think.

Kriner Cash. Usually there is a hard way and a less hard way. Am I the only one who thinks he is making this really hard? He had a contract that ended this summer. In 2011, after the charter surrender (which he opposed), Cash got an extension from a lame-duck school board that keeps him around until August of 2013 when MCS ceases to exist. But only if he chooses to stay. Which he seems disinclined to do considering that he applied for a superintendent job in North Carolina and, for all we know, some other places. His right-hand man, Irving Hamer, shot himself in the, uh, foot and had to leave. That falls mainly on Hamer but also partly on Cash. Cash does not pander to the media, which is his right, but his communications policies and his aloofness won him few friends, at a time when MCS needs all the friends it can get. Apathy is the enemy when your budget is bigger than the city’s but only directly serves part of the population. His report card in a Yacoubian Research survey of MCS folks was not good. He played hardball with the Memphis City Council and Mayor Wharton during budget hearings, threatening to delay the start of the school year and getting national attention for it. In a grit and grind town, he has the trappings of celebrity. He is being credited with Gates Foundation money, but that is a bit disingenuous. I think Mr. and Mrs. Gates and some of their Memphis friends had more to do with that. Finally, why do superintendent contracts have to be as full of buyout clauses and loopholes as star coaches’ contracts? Why is it so yesterday to fulfill a contract without complaint, no more no less? There is nothing stopping Cash from sending out a press release or calling a meeting to state his intentions about Memphis. If his views have changed or are evolving, so what? Who would not understand? Just tell us what you want. Or the Unified School Board calls a meeting June 11th and it comes out then.

Martavius Jones. Always thoughtful, always available, always on the job. Those of us who blew our horns for MCS charter surrender and unity with the Shelby County system have an obligation to play out the hand, bad as it looks. We knew it was risky. There’s no going back in the face of suburban sentiment to have their own school systems. Make the positive case for a unified, inclusive system and make compromises if necessary to see that it has a chance. If you invite white suburbanites to your party, don’t be surprised when they act like white suburbanites.

Rev. LaSimba Gray and the black preachers. Several years ago, before this current fuss began, I was at a Shelby County school board meeting when the board was all white. Mr. Gray was there to discuss the black population in southeast Shelby County and its lack of representation on the school board. He left the meeting in a huff, muttering about “an all-white board.” Man’s got a point, I thought. But if you are doing a television interview about John Aitken, give him the courtesy of pronouncing his name right. (No s in it.)

Willie Herenton. Watching and waiting and biding his time. He will be heard from again. Twenty years ago, he saw the coming dissolution of Memphis schools as we know them, and he also saw and stated publicly the importance of keeping white people in the city.

John Aitken. The opposite of Cash in some respects as far as openness. Attends all the meetings, gets there on time, no bodyguards or driver, speaks to anyone and everyone. Sometimes it makes sense to hire the white person, and sometimes it makes sense to hire the black person. If the goal is a system with some sort of unity, Aitken would be a good hire, assuming he wants the job and can assure board members that he is his own man, not David Pickler’s go-to guy. I don’t think this job needs – or would attract – a super-superintendent if a search were to be undertaken. Too much money and pull from education think tanks and consulting. MCS has had three outsiders – Kriner Cash, Carol Johnson, and Gerry House – as superintendents in the last 15 years. Good time to give an insider a shot. I like the idea of taking up Aitken’s contract along with Cash’s contract. The old county school board gave Aitken a two-year extension in 2011; otherwise his contract would have expired in 2013. Like the city school board, the county board was jockeying for position. If Aitken doesn’t get the job, he gets paid through 2015. Question: would he want the job if the suburbs and their schools, including Houston High School where he was once principal, broke away? No harm in asking.

U.S. District Judge Samuel H. Mays. In his ruling on September 28, 2011, eight months he wrote, “The Court will appoint a special master to assist in implementing the Consent Decree and to resolve disputes among the parties.” I don’t really know what a special master does or if one would do any good, but why bring it up if you’re not going to do it?

Charter schools. The basic impulse of proponents of charter schools and suburban school systems is similar. Both want independence from the mother ship, and both want to poach some of the students, funding, and teaching talent working for same. If charter surrender had not broken up MCS, charter schools would have done it eventually.

Teacher options and mobility. There is soon to be a bull market for good teachers, especially in math and science, and for principals. For years some of them have gone from MCS to private schools and DeSoto County to pick up a second pension and leave some of their ulcers behind. Now they can go to charter schools, especially if they are young Teach For America alums. In 2013, imagine the opportunities if Bartlett, Germantown, Collierville, Lakeland, Arlington, and Millington and the Achievement School District are all gearing up new systems and looking for a few good men and women to build around. No matter how many ‘burbs vote for muni’s, it’s hard for me to see anything but competition for students, funding, and teachers/principals where the rich get richer and the losers get left behind. Sharing? I don’t think so. At some point this gets to be every system for itself.

Fred Smith on liberal arts degrees. The chief executive of our biggest employer is in Fortune magazine this week talking about lots of things, including college education and, by extension, high school and community colleges. “I personally think that the federal government — and you’re talking to a liberal arts major here — should restrict its funding of higher-education grants and loans to science, math, and engineering because that’s where most of the value added comes,” he says. Chaucer and “The Canterbury Tales” or mechanical engineering? The choice is yours, college students. I’m pretty sure Smith has no plans to become a superintendent or a college president, but when a liberal arts graduate (Yale) disses liberal arts and praises a community college in West Memphis, it might be a good idea to pay attention.

Categories
Opinion

Weekend Report: Egypt, International Paper, FedEx, and Susan Komen

Susan_G_Komen.jpg

Best line of the week: “Burger King,” by developer Henry Turley to the ambulance crew member who asked which hospital he wanted to be taken to after he passed out while chairing a board meeting for Sun Trust Bank this week. He blamed his fall on cold medications and a lack of breakfast and declined an overnight stay in the hospital. He is doing fine.

The CEOs of two of our biggest companies were in the news Thursday. On CNBC, FedEx CEO Fred Smith said the U.S. economy is growing but not at a rate high enough to absorb the increase in population. He recommended that the government enhance capital investment, keep exploring fuel sources not dependent on Middle Eastern nations, and change the tax code provisions that penalize profits made abroad. Smith said 43 percent of FedEx world management team is minorities and women. And he said the Post Office “is run by a very competent man who was in Memphis last week to talk to our managers.” That would be Patrick Donahoe.

An hour later, International Paper CEO John Faraci was on a web conference for IP’s fourth-quarter and annual financial report. He said IP had its “best financial results in almost two decades.” The company, which has some 2,400 employees in the Memphis area, transformed itself in 2010, selling its land portfolio, cutting costs, and preparing the way for $1.5 billion in capital investments in 2012. I interviewed Faraci later that day for an upcoming story in our MBQ magazine. Things I didn’t know until this week: IP’s North American mills get 73 percent of their energy from renewable sources and IP is the recycler of 12 percent of all paper that is recycled.

Egypt has raised the standard for violence at sporting events with a riot that killed 74 people. My friend Mohamad Elmeliegy, who came to Memphis from Cairo, told me he was saddened but not surprised by the bad news. In a column in September he said Egypt is new to democracy and “has been governed by the military since the pharaohs.”

Don’t put your sponsors in the position of having to talk about abortion. That’s the lesson of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure turnabout this week, according to a colleague in our marketing department who is familiar with the Memphis Race for the Cure in Germantown every year. Komen had said earlier this week it would cease to fund grants for breast cancer screening to Planned Parenthood under new rules to tighten eligibility. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Komen said in a statement on Friday signed by its board of directors and its founder Nancy Brinker.

Categories
Opinion

Owed to FedEx

If the presidency of the United States weren’t closed to captains of industry, the Republicans and Democrats would be calling upon the services of someone whose experience trumps all of the recent candidates, FedEx founder Fred Smith.

He has been speaking out quite a lot recently. There was a long interview in The Wall Street Journal last Saturday, a full-page Journal ad/manifesto on energy called “The Unshaken Pillar,” signed by Smith and three other CEOs, interviews with Charlie Rose and The New York Times and, locally, with Mike Fleming and MBQ magazine.

Along with some wishful thinking by various Republicans, this fueled speculation that Smith might be John McCain’s running mate or serve in his cabinet if McCain is elected. It reached the point that FedEx finally issued a formal statement that Smith is staying put and is not interested in public office.

He has his reasons. But you can’t blame people for trying.

The issues are jobs, energy, national security, America at war, the global economy, health care, taxes, and leadership. Recall, if you can, what McCain and Obama and Palin and Biden said in the debates. The presidency, we’ve heard, is about judgment, not experience. But judgment should be forged by experience. Whether you agree with him or not — and some people don’t, judging by the comments and blog posts on his most recent interview — Smith speaks from experience. When the campaign ends and the clean-up begins next year, his influence will be valuable to whichever party takes the White House and Congress.

Jobs? FedEx created 300,000 of them since 1973.

Energy? More planes and vehicles than most countries.

National security? Millions of sensitive shipments every day.

War? Smith served two tours in Vietnam with the Marines.

Global economy? FedEx has service to more than 200 countries.

Health care and benefits? See: Memphis Hub.

Taxes? Annual revenues of $38 billion.

Stock market slump? With 19.8 million shares of FedEx, Smith has lost, on paper, a cool billion since 2006, when the stock was at $115.

Political hardball? FedEx is among the annual leaders in PAC donations.

Joe Sixpack? The FedEx brand is on race cars in North Carolina, badminton players in Beijing, football in Washington, D.C., and basketball in Memphis.

Trial by fire? A platoon in Vietnam, airline deregulation, media adulation and criticism, corporate acquisitions, union votes, losing and replacing top talent, 9/11, dealing with every president since Jimmy Carter, and the logistics of overnight delivery in seriously bad weather, to name a few.

If this isn’t job training for the presidency, then what is?

Our choice next week is between a politician six years removed from the Illinois Senate and a 72-year-old senator whose running mate could not advance to the second round of Jeopardy. Maybe you think McCain is running eight years too late or Obama eight years too early, but with McCain/Palin, Obama/Biden, Kerry/Edwards, or Bush/Cheney, we’re not getting our best leaders on the ballot or on the field.

The indignities, privacy invasions, and duration of the campaign have limited the modern presidency to the most driven members of the political class. As a reporter, I sometimes thought it would be easier to pin Smith to a wrestling mat than to get him to pose for a photograph. After having his picture taken for MBQ, he asked that we consider not using it on the cover. Since its founding, FedEx, fully aware of the needs of the media to personalize complicated stories, has emphasized the team, not the top.

I once asked Smith if he could run General Motors. (He said yes.) This was after Michael Moore’s 1989 movie, Roger and Me, about GM CEO Roger Smith came out. The industrial titan was showing cracks, but it was still a titan. Now the question seems funny. I was looking backward, not forward. If GM is in a headline today it is probably next to the words “losses mount,” “job cuts,” “federal aid,” or “possible bankruptcy.” The market capitalization of FedEx is now five times as much as GM.

In the MBQ interview, Smith said globalization, contrary to political demagoguery, has been the main engine of economic growth in the U.S. for the past 25 years. “The problem,” he said, “is that the benefits of global trade are very diffused and the pain is very localized.”

Except in Memphis, where the benefits are very localized. When it comes to leadership, our gain is America’s loss.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

McCain to Pick Fred Smith for Veep? Sez Who?

CREDIT: collage by Jackson Baker

Yep. This is what it will look like (click photo to enlarge):

And this is how Miz Marsha explained it to Larry King (since he asked) on Monday night:

Larry King: By the way, congresswoman Blackburn, do
you have a favorite for vice president?

Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Well, I think that one of the
things that you’re going to see with the McCain decision — this is just my
own, my own speculation — is that he will choose a non-traditional candidate.
And I think…

Larry (grasping the thread): Like?

Marsha (forging ahead): … that he will make a
late decision. It would not surprise me to see a female. It would not surprise
me to see a person of color. It would not surprise me to see a businessman –
maybe someone like Fred Smth, who is the head of FedEx, who knows how to run a
business. I think that you’re going to see somebody outside of the box. McCain
has always been a maverick, and I think you’re going to see that come through as
he chooses a running mate.

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