Roy Exum
In retrospect we should have seen it coming. Chattanooga’s smartest business leaders gathered at the Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday to hear the smartest business leader in the history of the state of Tennessee. Fred Smith, who complemented an education at Yale with a massive dose of glory, guts, and daring with the U.S. Marines in Viet Nam, was in town to tell the mesmerizing story of how he single-handedly molded his Federal Express into a global giant.
His speech was every bit as glorious as the books and articles that have acclaimed him as a genius since four Falcon jets left Memphis with 127 packages on April 17, 1973.
That was the start of a company that today has 350,000 employees and delivers millions of packages every day everywhere in the world with the exception of America’s arch enemies – Iran, Syria, North Korea, and, not for much longer, Communist Cuba.
So it was almost as an after-thought, this following a standing ovation, did Smith approach the podium a second time to express his deep sorrow over the four Marines and the Navy sailor who were slaughtered by a terrorist in Chattanooga last month. He read each of their names slowly, mourned for their families, and then presented a check for $100,000 for the fallen warriors’ families on behalf of FedEx employees everywhere.
It was better than a magician pulling a rabbit out of a top hat. As he immediately received a far more rousing ovation than his first, it was typical of the stories told about Fred Smith – under-promise and over-deliver. And, once again, the corporate giant’s famed ‘Purple Promise’ was fulfilled by the Chairman of the Board himself: “I will make every FedEx experience outstanding.”
Oh my mercy. He was outstanding alright. He darn near got what would have been a third standing ovation when he credited much of the freight carrier’s brilliance to the fact that they really excelled “once we got the government out of the way.”
Smith was tasked with the gargantuan task of getting the freight industry, as well as the airline industry, deregulated. Archaic laws and stupidity notwithstanding, Smith never forgot what he believes is the key element of his company in a time when technology and innovation are so intertwined nobody knows what is coming next. “Nothing will ever replace the friendly face of a FedEx employee when a package is delivered. We have reached so many milestones but we’ve never underestimated the power of a human being.”
You sensed that at that very moment Fred might have locked eyes with Senator Bob Corker, who Wednesday became one of a very few men to receive a standing ovation for just introducing the speaker! Seriously, Corker gets up to introduce his FedEx friend and doesn’t say a word before the crowd is to its feet.
Corker, perhaps Chattanooga’s favorite son after serving as Mayor and then becoming one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in the World,” is an integral part of the Chamber’s best year in the last 30. With businesses flocking here and the Volkswagen plant doubling in size, Corker has been as vital to Chattanooga as Smith has to Tennessee, most especially Memphis where FedEx sends a non-stop jet to Tokyo and Dubai every single night (as well as 218 other countries).
Corker shrugs off any praise but said Wednesday that the appointment of Bill Kilbride to head the Chamber of Commerce was easily-seen as a component of the Chamber’s success. Over 700 new members were added in the past year but, far more dramatically, the amount of jobs that are now available for skilled workers is unprecedented.
Smith and FedEx now employ 35,000 Tennesseans – which isn’t that much when you realize FedEx has 90,000 vehicles! “The key to our success has been innovation. You can’t be too quick or two late,” he smiled with the benefit of experience. “I love what Eric Shinseki (a former U.S. Army Chief of Staff) said one time, ‘If you don’t like change you are going to like irrelevance even less.’”
“People used to love their 8-track tape but then, in order to get the latest music, they had to switch to cassettes. Then came DVDs and now the Internet. They were forced to change … but they were better because of it,” was another morsel.
So, you see, with Corker’s help the legendary Fred Smith came to town but, “because I am a Marine what happened here made me sick,” he brought $100,000 with him. He didn’t have to, but he did. And that is precisely when a turn-away crowd at the Convention and Trade Center saw “the face” of Federal Express. “No matter what technology there is to come, the face of a FedEx employee delivering a package will never be replaced.”
You can etch that in stone.
royexum@aol.com