Fred Smith, who transformed the parcel shipping industry by risking his family’s fortune to found FedEx Corp. in 1971, has died. He was 80.
“It is with profound sadness and a heavy heart that I share that Frederick W. Smith, our founder and executive chairman, died earlier today,” CEO Raj Subramaniam wrote on the company’s website June 21.
Smith first conceived his idea to create a hub-and-spoke network to deliver packages overnight by jet aircraft in 1965 while attending Yale University.
After two tours in Vietnam as a Marine, he persuaded investors to back his concept. Now, FedEx is one of the world’s largest logistics companies with more than $80 billion of annual sales.
“Fred Smith was a titan of the trucking industry,” said American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear. “Through his hard work, ingenuity and sheer determination, his vision for a revolutionary transportation company took flight.
Over the course of five decades, he built FedEx into one of the world’s most iconic and innovative companies. His contributions not only transformed our industry; they helped reshape our economy and forever changed the way we all live.”