Can see, Benjamin Franklin. He was the inventor of the post office, Postal Service. And you are a native of new yor york. He went to college in florida, and then he went back to your familys business and you built it up, he moved to greenso , North Carolina build into a Logistics Company ultimately merged with another company. Given very involved in philanthropic activities at my alma mater, Duke University with other plates so thank you for giving us your time today racemic let me ask you, at the outset, when you agreed to be postmaster general, did you realize you would get this much attention because it not normally the most famous position in washington d. C. I doubt a fair made people can name your immediate predecessors. You are very well known, did you expect to get this much attention . I think when i accepted the role, we need to member the situation of the Postal Service at the time. It was right at the heights of the beginning of the pandemic. And we were having significant financial consequences at the time. So, i was urgently asked to joi join. I thought most of the attention would be around the issues of the september 2020 laws going from 7. 8 billion to 20 billion in the projection period and having no help in sites. That is what i thought the attention would be spent. Instead, we had a lot of media and political attention on the things that were very much removed from that. And, that was the unexpected sense of intention. Any second thoughts about having taken the job . You had a very comfortable life in North Carolina. Your active philanthropy, your wife was an ambassador, or was nominated to be an ambassador to canada. Any second thoughts about taking this job . No not at all. This is a fantastic organization with very committed people. I think we have a very promising future if we get a few things aligned and move forward with them. Think i have a certain type of expertise and availability also and willingness to engage in this type of activity. I am happy, im excited, ive had a warm welcome from the team at the Postal Service. We are working hard to move forward to get to the election and get on with our exciting player in the marketplace. So as i may have told you, i have a special interest the Postal Service because my father worked in the Postal Service as i dread his entire career he retired when he was 55. I had a summer job was as a Postal Service. Between freshman and sophomore years. I was a mail carrier. Which was actually the best jobs i ever had. At a special interest in Postal Service but i never got invited back to the second year i dont you configure outcome if i did not do a good job in the first year, i thought i did a good job. But they did not. [inaudible] they have high standards for carriers. It is a tough job. It is not easy. It was not easy. They had a can of mace, when dogs come after you. So the first day on the job a dog was coming after me so i got up the may scan and i sprayed i it. And that unfortunate, three houses later the owner of the dog said did you spray my dog and i said yes, and she said will couldnt you see he is blind and has no teeth . I said i did not know im sorry for that is a less amazing mace, maybe thats why i did not get offered the job of the second summer. In any event, think is so we have about 40 or 50000 dog bites a year. It is a big problem for our carriers. Okay, maybe i just picked the wrong dog, i dont know. So okay im going to ask you a number of questions which you can ask at nausea him i am sure. But for our audience of a kind of go through them again. When you took the job, were you asked by anybody at the white house or the president to slow the mail down . Did anyone say slow down . No, a million times no. I have had very little conversation with the administration. And, that is where we were my plan that would guilty Postal Service get approved comment is beyond my authority. So to date, we have had no inpu input, no input from the white house on anything. They dont have authority to direct me to it do anything. While they may have some great ideas, i dont know, i have not heard any yet concerning, all of these be that his or her normal leadership process and a board of governors. That is how we run this organization. To lindsey doubly said slow the mailed out. Nobody calls you a later onset heyer doing a good job of slowing the mail down . They did not call you about that . Nothing from the white house about slowing the mail down. Once a sum of the actions you take in her let me go through some of them and ask you why you did some of them. So for example, it is said you eliminated overtime for postal workers, i guess to save money. With that right . No, no, david that is a little bit of misinformation. We ran 13 all of the time before i came and we are running 13 now part of the reason we are running overtime is because of the pandemic, and in certain hotspots. That is how we supplement our labor. But in the long run, that is a problem for the Postal Service. After get through the election and the pandemic that is something im very much going to be focused on. For 5 billion all the time. It also brings instability in our workforce. That is one of the things im looking at doing. Bring stability to the organization. Another thing you had some mail sorting machines and you kind of took them away from the Postal Service somehow. Why did you get rid of those mail sorting machines . Again, no, no, no a million times no. I did not do that either. I dont know if i mentioned this in the show we are talking, the circumstances would i came into the organization with brief congres congress\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ we have no answer to that. We had\ \ \ \ no finance\ or\ of cares\ act\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \\ loan\ \ \ \ \ was on\ silence\ we cannot\ get\ to a\ negotiated\ deal\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \. That is what i focused on the beginning. Those are processes that have been around for a long time. They ranted about 35 or 40 utilization. They are experts in the field that understands our capacity to process mail and so forth. These machines are costly to keep up. And those decisions were made at the field level. I heard about the sorting machines when i read in the newspaper. Okay. What about the collection boxes . We are all family with the blue collection boxes are a lot of peoples neighborhood. That is not true, we have about one and 40000 collection boxes throughout the nation. That has been, our address base has grown significantly. It gives us larger geographic areas to cover. The mount volume has dropped significantly over the last ten years. Some of these collection boxes have very few pieces of mail. It is been an ongoing process of the last ten years. We are moved about thousand collection boxes a year. There is a process that is within the organization, spread throughout the area as to which one gets moved. Thats another when i read in the paper. The places we make and other access. You can access another blue box which should be close by. Ingo one of the 32000 post office spread throughout which is basically every american community. Being give it to the mail coward carrier shows up your house six days a week. This is part of the inputs we make we take these boxes away. One of the other charges it has been made is that you told workers of the mail is not ready to be delivered, leave and go out on your route without all of the mail. In other words you told people to not wait for all of the mail to be given to them. Just get out of the rat and start delivering whatever you have. Is that fair or true . No, no, no. Lets talk about the two big changes that i made. One was to run our trucks on time. We run a 4,850,000 trucks a day. They were running late and they were running based on judgment. This is the essence of the key attribute running our network. The trucks do not run on time, which the which are mail cares dont run on time and are plants dont produce, are plants dont produce through a schedule. It creates chaos and additional cost. I work with the team to get those trucks, to run on time, with the mail in them. That was a good plan, but couldve had a better execution we are recovering from that right now. The other big change is reorganizing the Postal Service, 55000 administrative personnel throughout seven regions of the nation. When i leave here, to me that is going to be, we will see this manifests itself one of the most impactful changes that i will make because it is creating better lines of troll and authority and responsibility and clarity. But those of the two changes that i made. The rest are pieced together stories. So there was a federal judge in Washington State that has i guess issued an injunction saying all of these things are being done, dont do them for a while. The question is are you going to appeal that . Guest we are in negotiations right now. Id did look up my email from us until this morning and was going to be on the show and i did not want to get upset or anything. But many of the things he judges have decided that we already announced we were doing a month and a half ago when i put the stop to some of these things were normal processes for us, where we are in negotiations with them and hopefully we will come to a conclusion without having to appeal them. American public needs to know we are prepared and committed to deliver election mail. And these rulings are really not necessary. But at the end of the day we abide by the law. The decisions will be made between us and the Justice Department. The decision to appeal or not is that the Postal Service decision . The white house decision . Who is in charge of making that decision . Not the white house. The Justice Department will lead the organization that leads us through this and makes a decision. In conjunction with our Legal Department which is working very closely with it. Where the other decision was made by a new york judge last week as well. And he said you have to make sure certain that all election mail is considered firstclass mail. Is that a problem for you . Well appeal that decision . That is a typical process. He is making a decision on something that we already do. Firstclass is a definition of a class of mail and has a certain treatment to that class of mail. Your time with the physical handling. And in many cases we treat balance with a higher priority than firstclass mail. And we will be advancing, we will maintain the processes that we have always in the past which as we see about we want to get it through the system and get it delivered quicker. You riesling had a call with 50 secretaries of state in the country from each of the states, relating to a postcard you had sent out to people about mail. And you said in that is its report in the press that maybe you should have consulted them. What was all that about . I think, what i said is we heres what it is about. Okay, the Postal Service is probably it is the most stable part of the mail vote process over the past several years. Our process of been the same, delivery time is been the same in her message has been the same. Vote early, its like you dont send a mothers day card on mothers day. If you want to get it before mothers day. And i hope my mothers not watching, votes are a little more important. I hope you take more care than a mothers day card. The 50 states all with different requirements. Some states still have not made their decision just. So we set out at the beginning of the eared recognizing theres going to be more in votes this year, to educate the public and work with the states. We have had committees hear from our board, Union Leadership right down to our districts and the people throughout the whole nation. The purpose of that is to educate the public on our physical distribution processes and the timing of voting. We have a website, we have commercials we put out, videos , meetings, we have made about 10000 contacts throughout the country at different personnel. This the postcard we sent out was a general statement to the public to basically request about early fear going to vote by mail. And vote early. It was a high level message. And in some cases, it was not high enough and it conflict with a couple of the states. That is where we got someone to complain. I want to say though, we had a great deal of appreciation for many states in our efforts to educate the public on voting by mail. Did you say your mother is watching . Guest i dont know she was, i want her to know that mothers day card is important. And your mothers life . She is, she is. Host did shiver st. Louis why did you take this job . Did she ever say that to you . Guest shows his wise everyone picking on you. Stuart libby quebec the firstclass mail situation. So if somebody wants to mail their ballot in, the best thing to do is mail as soon as possible, is that right . Guest i would say yes come as much time as you can give up to handle it the better. And it just makes common sense. Get your ballot, make your decision and get it in early. So some people say that the Postal Service loses lots of money and maybe could be more efficient. I think one of the missions is to make it more efficient. Should the Postal Service make money, breakeven or does it matter if it makes money . It matters a kind of violates the law we dont cover up costs. We are legislated to be self sustained. It just kind of amazes me how that is never in the discussion. We lost 10 billion a year, without change we planned that will happen for the next ten years. With regard to efficiency, theres two ways i look at that. One is, we are required, universal Service Obligation to deliver to every house, every address in america, 161 million addresses, six days a week. That isnt inefficient thing. A private sector business would not be able to do that. We deliver mail on mules and the grand canyon and small airplanes up in alaska each day. That is our mission. And i am a defender of that and believe in that. I believe that is our strength. Those type of inefficiencies exist in the nature we build. Then theres operational inefficiencies. Which is what i am working on with the team. We have goals will get to write after the election. They are real small, they are real dollars some help us with sustainability. Some people say why dont we privatize the Postal Service . Take away from the government completely let the private sector figure out how to make Something Like that work. Jim the view and if that is a good or bad idea . I think it is a bad idea. First of all i dont think it would work sought something the American Public would want to see. Second of all, he would get them mules down the grand canyon for 55 cents we would require legislation for that and we know how that goes. Some people have said that the Postal Service is losing money for two reasons in addition one is because of email people are not settings but firstclass mail as they used to. Is that fair or unfair statement i think some of it as an accurate statement. An industry is evolves and competes with this this is where look at it, this is network because this 80 million a year to deliver our service. We charge 70,000,000,004. That is the difference of 10 billion there. How we get it that involves both legislation, freedom from the prc, ten year model, we are waiting for decisions on that. And us driving operational efficiencies getting tossed out a new Revenue Growth which we have plans for. It is a bunch of Different Things that drive together whether or not we lose money is still unders amazon is not using the service is not paying the full freight of what it costs. In other ecommerce companies. Is it fair to say youre not charging them enough . Is that a big problem . I think if you look at the Postal Service trying to cover its costs and that is a great cost goal in reinvesting into our infrastructure, we are short and price, or the tools in the toolbox to get there. With regard to amazon i think i think everything is respectable pricing with 10 billion shorts. It is not four times the price or anything like that. On the 10 billion, do you think it will get money from congress to make sure to get the election mail you negotiated by congress that additional amount of money. There are likely to get it anyway . So first of all, we need enough money to get to the election. Plenty of resources for the election. We will handle the election, the whole organization is committed to that. With regard to congress, everybody should know who doesnt notice, we really dont get any money from congress. Now theres lots of different bills floating around that promise to give us money, they are not even close to getting a pass we take pride in the whole selfsustaining objective here at the organization. Were not looking for handouts, we are in a selfimprovement mission right here right now. With the treasury with the losses. Still delivered everywhere. Its the range of seven to 10 billion that ive asked for. Other than that which i dont, i dont see. Huge if they just gave us money, if some fundamental change our business model, we have and we need to change it. She went so congress doesnt give you money but do you lend money from time to time . How do you meet your deficit unless you borrow from somebody . Guest we dont pay her bills and sums cases. We have, we do borrow, we do borrow from a treasury oriented Banking System we have about 15 billion. We did get to a deal when i came, the deal the treasury for 10 billion under the cares act was kind of dead. And i called treasury emily worked to work with the treasury secretary to get it back on the table. And we came to reasonable accommodation for us to follow one. Host lets talk about covid. Many companies have been working remotely during covid. I guess the Postal Service cannot really work remotely because youve got to deliver the mail. So how do you manage the Postal Service remotely like many other companies . Or have you just not doing anything remotely . Guest within our Administrative Offices we have many that are working remotely we basically have two stories here on the pandemic. His whole nation has experience experienced, we have about 10000 of her coworkers contracted the disease. We have about 2000 out right now. We have less 91 coworkers. It has really been a tragedy. The other side of the story is extremely impressive. All of it done before i got here. This is one of the great things about the Postal Service, high we can gear up and focus on national emergencies. Her efforts in terms of getting ppe out there, our procedures, and so forth and take care of the workers. Great work with her Union Leadership so we can move forward, the Union Leadership is very involved with this burden look at safety to our plants and or carriers. This all came together very, very quickly. We deliver the 161 million homes, nine and 9. 8 before the pandemic getting there. With our mission throughout the nation on that. Heather has been the fires on the west coast. Have you been able to deliver the mail if you have been able to, how are the postal Workers Health affected by the air and so forth . How are you dealing with that . Again very similar type of impressive the most impressive thing respond to these national emergencies. Were people, not only the communities watching their home homes, and have these issues but we live in those issues. Our work is in those communities but yet they still have to go out. It is the first symbol of exploring normal behaviors when the mail start showing up again. It is really Something Special to see. I would down to lake charles last week. In the hurricane hit lake charles. You can see how bad, how torn up the city was. I went to one of the delivery units. And most of these workers did not have lights they met have water in their homes but they were coming and working hard to deliver mail to their communities. The safety administrator standpoint, we have air quality tests is different types of equipment to go out. So maintain the safety of our employees, we work with the Union Leadership to make sure everyone agrees it is safe to proceed. And that we do the heroic work that we do in this case. Sue went so when i was growing up, i believe i have a right. The mail was delivered twice a day pretty does hard to believe that. But i think it is true. On saturdays as well. To think the mail these to be delivered on saturdays as well . They have cutting out saturdays way to save money do you have a view on that . Guest i do. Its a hard thing to get change. And i also think it is the strength of the Organization Part is something i am taking a gamble on is what we can do to connect to the American Public in a better way to entice them to use it more. You have to remember, we have 32000 post offices in every community. We have about a billion visits a year with these destination locations. Its a combination of the continued contact with the American Public from our carriers. It is one of the major reasons we are the most trusted organization in the nation. They could potentially expanding some of our connection in the post offices. That is a Big Initiative of mine. Part of my reorganization was to separate, have established a whole delivery and retail and delivery part of the organization headed by experience of a new chief retail and delivery officer here, longtime employee. She also have a digital background for a beer very, very much excited about what were going to do in the area to help us grow. Sue and how many actual places of Postal Service have . Guest six and 40000. One or 40000 vets. Select six and 40000. What composition is men, what are women, what are africanamerican do you know . Speech we have about 500,000 unionized employees. We have as i said 100,000 that. We are about 40 minority in the organization. And i would guess the malefemale statistics of the population. It is really an unbelievable reflection of the American Public. The american economy. Host s if i wanted to send a letter overnight someplace the united states, i would have three big choices. I guess ups, fedex and the Postal Service. Why should i pick the Postal Service . Lets have not fully with any of them and i want a letter overnight, why should i pick the Postal Service . Guest in general we are cheaper. We deliver on time. I will say i give my plug its good for america. Im asking for everyones business out there. Sue and okelly talk for a moment about your own background. You grew up in new york. And you ultimately went to college i think in florida. But you move back to new york. Your dad has i understand a small trucking business is that right . Guest yes, sir. How to take a small trucking business that had less than a dozen employees, may be less than 20 employees and build it into one of the larger Logistics Companies in the united states. How did you do that . Was her skill set to do that . My skill set was in public accounting, i was a cpa and auditor. I had many different companies. That gave me a background to look at how to integrate different operational aspects of many, many different industries. When youre in a logistics business, we handle everything from mickey mouse to mail bags, to cell phones. So that type of experience in the auditing world helped me. One of the big pushes was i did not like trucking. [laughter] so i needed to move on into something else. And at that point, it was the beginning when i really got my running legs it was the beginning of the introduction of technology. Information Processing Technology into business. And, i look to differentiate ourselves a turnkey type project using engineering. And i convinced people at that particular point to move forward with my organization, one step at a time. We had once we started to have our model out there, again very wide acceptance. Is very selective the type of business we did. He also move the company to North Carolina 20 plus years ago, how come you do not have a north killen accent . You have a new york accent. Statement i chose to use my new york accent today. [laughter] see what you move your company there, what was that, for people who dont know what does a Logistics Company do . What is the service you are providing people with Logistics Company . What is that . Guest theres many Different Things different Logistics Companies do. We manage transportation, we set up big centers and have our leading Service Strength was in technology. We were often rated one of the top providers of complex Logistics Solutions for organizations in the world. And these were Companies Like boeing, verizon, disney, we ran call centers, we plan inventory, we took orders, process them to very specific schedules. And ship them to consumers. A lot of it interaction between, our ship our client arming clients and their clients. Thats what we do. We probably moved about fixing billion dollars of goods, one peace at a time each year. Statement the ultimately Merger Company with another Logistics Company and you stay there for a while. And then you left it. And recent years you been involved in philanthropic and other matters, is that right . Guest yes, sir. Host so tell me, back to the Postal Service, today, what is the single biggest challenge that you face . I assume its not related to the election issue we discussed. But the single biggest challenge the Postal Service basis is what in your view . Guest so, i think we we need to change how we approach the marketplace. We are very Mission Driven there. We have a Great Mission oriented culture. And we try to move into having a Winning Culture. We have a Winning Culture we need to operate with more precision. We need introduce new product into the marketplace where we hope to start Revenue Growth. And we need to advance ourselves in all aspects of what a normal business would be. I look at it more as the opportunities we have as opposed to the challenges. Everyone knows challenges. Everyone knows first class males going down. We stopped that was our academy reverse that from stopping how do we supplement that . We have ids going on around here now. We have high cost in many areas, how do we resolve the high cost issues question their plans for that. And then we have a broken business model, the 14th year of tenure analysis. We need them to make a decision. The party agreed the model, we need to make a decision have legislation. All those of the answers the Postal Service. But we need to get them down. Host known the private sector this a lot of new technologies, Artificial Intelligence technology, all kinds of new data, election and dissemination. Matters that have been used in the private sector to make things more efficient. Either one, two, three technology to think of the next five years or so that the Postal Service could adapt or adopt that ultimately make the Postal Service more efficient . Theres a lot of information technology, we have some automation in our plants. We have to align technology where our strength is in our strength is Human Interaction each day hundred 61 million addresses and Retail Center through every community. And how do we enhance that connection with the American People who are destination customers through technology . How do we enhance communication with them . Our interaction with them to stay connected . Thats really were focuses on technology. Back for a moment to the issue of mail in ballots and so forth. President trump has said hes worried about maybe fraud and so forth relating to this mail in ballots. I think you would set you disagree with the president on that. At least review is mail and ballots will be delivered and theres not fraud. Is that correct . Am i correctly summarizing your position . The Postal Service will do its job to deliver the ballots. Okay . When the president goes into that Postal Service does not, is not equipped to do it, but she is incorrect with that. We are quick to do going to move and deliver ballots. The rest of the discussion, i dont comment on. He went alright, what is the Biggest Surprise you about washington d. C. . Youve lived your career in new york and North Carolina. Now you are in washington. Has it been a more difficult environment than you thought . What is the biggest rise on the upside the Biggest Surprise of the downside of this job . Ive been in and out of washington, i was not around various things that have been around in washington, i would say, when i comment on that i have to go to why im here, right . The surprise really is in a good way, ive been embraced by the team here. While theyve engaged in the idea that we collectively come up together with an move very, very fast. We think within 45 days some of the impacts we had been publicized as negative organizationally, we are prepared to move forward and achieve some of the objectives weve had. That is very rewarding and a pleasant surprise when you think about coming into the bureaucracy so to speak of washington d. C. On the downside, theres a lot of misinformation that gets promoted for a lot of different reasons. I dont care to get into. It is full of misinformation. Okay so youve been appointed by the Postal Service board of governors which are also a member. You are member of the board of governors . Guest imi m. Seventh year term goes for a number of years as i understand it. Self President Trump is reelected i would pursue read want to stay, but if Vice President biden is elected president , you have the right, i guess under the contract you have to stay, would you be interested in staying as well . Read dont really want to do that then . Guest i have developed a really rude good bond with the team here. They are gauging the objectives of my want to see them through. We have a path that we have a plan to have a successful Postal Service. We need to Bring Congress one would need to bring the plc along and a few other things. But we have a plan and i would like to see that through no matter who is president. Sue went okay. So today, what would you like people to most know about the Postal Service. Lets suppose someone is watching and there can only remember a paragraph or pair to about the Postal Service what is the message you like them to take away from this discussion about the Postal Service . Guest i think the biggest number one thing to understand, which i think most of the public does is that 600 30,000 women and men that work here, unbelievably committed to fulfilling the mission to the American People. It is really heartwarming. Im very proud to be thrown in the seats and be the leader of this organization. Because the commitment is second to none. Also on the other side, think the American Public should know, that we do not get funding by the government. We dont get taxpayer dollars. We are providing a service and the mandate from congress is that we provide that service in a way in charge in a manner that covers our costs. There is often misleading things about service and funding and so forth. Those are two things. You have a very committed organization that is going to grow and prosper. We are committed to expanding our connection with the American Public. We dont receive taxpayer dollars we are proud of that. We just need to operate from the legislatures. Guest youve been under a lot of pressure for shortcoming of us he got a lot of text attention time for any rest or relaxation . Can you go out, play golf to anything or you dont have time for that anymore . Guest no, it is been pressure, we had pressured our careers, its just a different type of pressure. I dont feel a pressure. Im invigorated by the work, i work very hard five year retirement was fun, but you know i am having fun now. I thrive on moving organizations and trying to think about the role here is very similar to what i did as a Third Party Provider and the private sectors integrate watch organizations to advance Service Mission to the lowest cost we can do it. Im feeling good, and im going to continue to charge forward. Sue went finals to review get any inspiration from Benjamin Franklins portrait is behind it is the ever whisper any ideas on how to make the Postal Service more efficient . I think when he was running and he delegated it to his wife to run. Jenny inspiration from Benjamin Franklin . Guest not yet. Im very proud and humbled to be in the seat that he occupied. I read his book, i night he did an interview with Walter Isaacson on his book. I watched it. thank you for explaining the issues i tried to raise with you and i appreciate all your time and effort. Good luck to you. Thank you. Thank you, david. It was fun. Thank you. As i mentioned to everybody, this will be on our website in a few moments and i hope you all enjoyed and learned a fair bit about the postmas police form. Welcome to the Virginia Senate similar mark warner and republican candidate, and you might be possible for the Northern Virginia chamber of congress, and nbc board
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