Frederick Wallace Smith is the founder, chairman and CEO of FedEx. Smith was crippled by bone disease as a small boy but regained his health by age 10. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and was honorably discharged in 1969 with the rank of Captain.
About Frederick W. Smith in brief
Frederick Wallace Smith is the founder, chairman and CEO of FedEx. Smith was crippled by bone disease as a small boy but regained his health by age 10. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and was honorably discharged in 1969 with the rank of Captain. He received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts. In addition to FedEx, Smith is also a minority owner of the Washington Football Team of the National Football League. Smith won the NASCAR team’s sponsorship in 2011 by betting on blackjack to cover the company’s fuel bill. He is the son of James Frederick “Fred” Smith, the founder of the Toddle House restaurant chain and the Smith Motor Coach Company. Smith’s father died when his son was only 4, and the boy was raised by his mother and uncles. He attended elementary school at Presbyterian Day School in Memphis and high school at Memphis University School, and became an amateur pilot as a teen.
In 1962, Smith entered Yale University. While attending Yale, he wrote a paper for an economics class, outlining overnight delivery service. In 1973, the company began offering service to 25 cities, and it began with small packages and a fleet of 14 Falcon 20 jets. His focus was on an integrated air system. Smith developed FedEx on the idea of a shipment version of a bank clearing house where one bank house representative would be sent to the middle of the country to exchange materials. In the early days of FedEx, he had to go to great lengths to keep the company afloat. In one instance, after a business loan was denied, he took the last USD 5,000 to Las Vegas and won.
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This page is based on the article Frederick W. Smith published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 17, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
