Published by Creative Education P O Box 227 Mankato Minnesota 56002 Creative Education is an imprint of The Creative Company www thecreativecompany us design by zeno design production by christine vanderbeek art direction by rita marshall Printed by Corporate Graphics in the United States of America Photographs by Alamy AF archive NetPhotos AP Images Associated Press Corbis GENE BLEVINS Reuters Reuters Getty Images Daniel Acker Jeremy Bales Bloomberg Nelson Ching Bloomberg Andrew Harrer Bloomberg Chris Hondros Hisham Ibrahim Peter Kramer Scott Olson PAUL J RICHARDS AFP STR AFP BOB STRONG AFP Justin Sullivan Greg Whitesell iStockphoto David Birkbeck The Commercial Appeal James R Reid Copyright 2013 Creative Education International copyright reserved in all countries No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher FedEx and the products discussed in this book are either trademarks or registered trademarks of FedEx Corporation Trademarks associated with products of other companies mentioned are the trademarks of their respective owners This is not an official publication of FedEx Corporation and the views set out herein are solely those of the author library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Gilbert Sara The story of FedEx by Sara Gilbert p cm Built for success Summary A look at the origins leaders growth and innova tions of FedEx a logistics corporation that was founded in 1971 and today is one of the largest international shipping companies in the world Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-60818-177-3 hard cover ISBN 978-1-56660-123-8 eBook 1 FedEx Corporation Juvenile literature 2 Freight and freightage United States Juvenile literature 3 Aeronautics Commercial Freight Juvenile literature I Title II Series HE199 U5G55 2012 388 0440973 dc23 2011035755 First edition 987654321 creative education
built for success the story ofFedEx SARA GILBERT
O O O a 0 0 g go a 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 O O O E
the story of fedex A s the sun set on April 17 1973 a parade of airplanes began to touch down at the headquarters of Federal Express in Memphis Tennessee The 14 planes were greeted by many of the company’s almost 400 employees in cluding founder Fred Smith As soon as the planes came to a stop the employees unloaded and processed the 186 packages that had been collected from 25 cities across the country that day the first packages ever handled by the company Before the sun came up all of the packages were loaded back onto the airplanes ready to be delivered to their intended recipi ents the next day Smith was tired at daybreak but he was ready to do it again the next night and his company would keep doing it for more than 40 years to come built for success
