Frederick Smith
Birdslip
Frederick Wallace Smith was born in Mississippi, United States, on the 11th of August, 1944. Frederick's father, James Smith, died when Frederick was only four years old. After his father's death, Frederick was raised by his mother and his uncles.
As a young child, Frederick was diagnosed with a crippling bone disease but was very fortunate to have recovered from it at the age of 10.
In 1962, Frederick gained admission into Yale University to study economics. While at Yale, he wrote a paper for his economics class, where he proposed overnight shipping as a solution to the delivery of sensitive packages like medicine. Unfortunately, his lecturer was not impressed with the idea and gave him a C grade for the assignment.
After his graduation from Yale in 1966, Frederick went on to serve in the U.S Marines. In 1970, after two tours during the Vietnam war, Frederick was honourably discharged as a captain and received two Purple Hearts, an award given to soldiers who died or were seriously injured by the enemy in battle.
In 1971, Frederick founded Federal Express as a delivery service company that combined the use of planes and trucks to optimize delivery time. He credits some of the operational success of FedEx in the early days to his exposure to the U.S Military's effective logistics and supply chain system.
Today, FedEx is ranked number 1 as the world's largest courier company with $83 Billion dollars in annual revenues.
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