UPS has kicked off this year’s celebration of its 100th birthday with an event in New Orleans inrecognition of employees’ efforts to resume services in the southern US metropolis following the
devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.UPS chairman and CEO, Mike Eskew, offered public as well as private thanks to employees inthe city and surrounding region for embodying the spirit of the company’s founder Jim Casey inquickly restoring service.
“At great personal sacrifice, UPS drivers and sorters and managers stepped into a huge voidin a devastated city and in less than three weeks, restored package delivery, freight and supplychain services,” he said. “Most of these employees did not have homes or even families nearby, andyet their dedication to customers and their city was such that they came back to work and restoredservice.”
Eskew met with several hundred employees as well as customers and dignitaries here on Fridayat the site of UPS’s newly rebuilt New Orleans package hub. The company reinvested $7.6 million inthe facility after it was completely flooded when the levees broke. All told, some 20 package hubsand centers throughout the region suffered damage during Katrina and had to be repaired at a totalcost of $8.3 million.
“Jim Casey founded this company in 1907 with an all-consuming commitment to customerservice,” Eskew continued. “We honour that legacy here today by saluting our people in New Orleansfor what they did after Katrina and continue to do today.”
UPS is celebrating its 100th birthday throughout 2007, primarily through employee eventsaround the world. The celebration in more than 55 US cities will revolve around the arrival of amobile Centennial exhibit, built inside large tractor-trailers. In New Orleans, Eskew opened theexhibit for the first time and guided employees and customers through the displays.
“We are proud of our heritage, but the focus of this celebration is not our history,” the CEOadded. “This Centennial is meant to mark the start of UPS’s next 100 years and the bright futurethat we are pursuing right now.”
UPS was founded in Seattle as a messenger service in 1907 by a 19-year-old teenager whoborrowed $100. Over the subsequent 100 years, much of it guided by founder Jim Casey, UPStransformed itself into a department store delivery service; a common carrier offering packagedelivery service throughout the United States; an international package delivery service with itsown airline and now, a trusted business partner that literally enables commerce for its customersby synchronizing the flow of goods, information and money.
Today, UPS employs more than 427,000 people; operates the world’s largest package deliverynetwork; operates the planet’s eighth-largest airline; utilizes almost 92,000 vehicles, and offersan ever-expanding array of supply chain services.
“We have transformed this organization dramatically, from a company primarily focused onpackage delivery in the United States to a broader provider of transportation-based and supplychain services,” Eskew concluded. “UPS today stands as a critical pipeline for global economicactivity.”
