From Operations to the CEO Seat: Jim Cochrane on Leadership, Credibility, and Developing People

I could walk out and give them direction on what to do. Or I
could ask 10 questions and let themfigure it out. Welcome to the Know Your
Ship podcastpresented by E-Hub. I’m your host, Frank Golce.Well, welcome,
Jim. We appreciate you being out here on the Know Your Ship podcast.Happy to
be here. Taking the time to travel across the country. The one and only Jim
Cochran.now CEO of the package shippers association PSA. Previously 43
yearswith the United States Postal Service. That’s correct. You don’t hear
that story much anymore.Like people spending an entire career with one
organization. I think I’ve worked for 12 different companies in mycareer.
Yeah. I think it it’s kind of a hold over to our our parents and stuff like
that. people, you know, I’m a northeastguy, grew up in Jersey City, so, you
know, people grew up in in in neighborhoods and towns and worked in afactory
or a mill and, you know, or whatever. So, people did work their lives in a in
a job and and that’s allchanged dramatically. Yeah. Then you get it’s like,
you know, they call them the term they use ingovernment, that’s not a postal
service issue, but anyone that works in government is golden handcuffs. Once
you get like 20 in, you might as well stayat 30, you know, because then you
get pensions and and retirement benefits and stuff. So, yeah. Okay. So, did
you grow up on youspent you grew up in Jersey? Have you spent your whole life
on the east coast? Did you ever move out west?I never moved out west. I
worked in Chicago for that far west. That’s about as far west. I’ve traveled
everywhere inthe US, different roles, but um yeah, I’m an east coast guy. I
you know grew up in in New Jersey and and then Ilived in Virginia and
Maryland and and now now down in Delaware. So Gotcha. So were your was your
family Imean is that kind of the the what you described earlier in terms
ofstayed in the same job 40 years or I mean my dad worked in my mother worked
in a hospital. My dad worked as in aninsurance industry. So he worked in New
Jersey, he worked in New York for a while and then they moved it out to the
suburbs and he was up in Connecticut alot, the insurance capital of the world
basically. And uh so you know, we didn’t have that kind I didn’t have that
kindof legacy. I I was, you know, going to school and and you know, my my
postal career was pretty much an accident, butyou know, ended up working out
pretty well, you know. Well, you I think you went to Villanova,right? For
college for for a for a minute. Yeah, for a minute. You had a cup of coffee
at Villova, as they say. Uh, andand so when you were when you were going to
school growing up, I mean, your dad’sin the insurance business, uh, mom’s in
in healthcare. Did you have some ideasabout what you wanted to do or what you
wanted to be? And No, it was it really was truly a I I Idrove a guy to take a
test to join the post office when I was like 17. I think I was still in high
school.Uhhuh. And uh so you got a test. You had a buddy who was going to take
a test for the post office?Yeah. He needed a ride. So he just needed a ride.
So I said, “Yeah, I’ll give you a ride.” And and I went down and it
turns out the the woman givingthe test is is uh her daughter grew up with my
sisters. That’s city, you know,it’s all environment. They all went to the
same schools and everything. So uh so she said, “You might as well take
thetest.” I said, “All right, I’ll take the test.” Thought
nothing of it. And then it’s a year late. I’m on summer breakfrom my freshman
year and and I uh freshman year I guess so and and then it’s uh you know take
another guy downto take the test and I see the same lady what was her name
Lauram I forget the last name DS or something like that butanyway she goes
are you going to take the test? I said yeah. She goes, “Well, you know
you you you got a score thelast time you were here a year ago.” And I
was like all right well I I’m only here for the summer. And she
goes,”That’s right. is what you need to do. You’re going to get $2 more
an hour cuz you’re a career instead of being acasual. So, just when you
leave, you know, you the whole time you’re working this summer, you’ll get $2
more an hour.All right, I’m all in on that. That sounds like a good deal. And
then I left and and I uh I ended up going back tocollege and and so you you
went to work. You went to work for like three months in the in the summer.
Yeah. Okay. Because you already hadI had a store from from the year before.
It became a career instead of a whatever they called it. And you got $2 more
anhour. Yeah. So then And so did you tell them you were leaving? Did you No,
I kind of just wandered away. Ithink I was supposed to I think I I I I was
supposed to send a notice in and I never did. And then I came back. It’sDecember
and it’s so I could use a little money for the holidays, whatever. And I I
went back into work and the guy said, “What are you doing here? I
firedyou.” So I never got anything. And he went into a file cabinet and
the letter of my removal from the postal servicenever got sent to my house.
And he said, “We need all the help. Go ahead. Go out there. you were a
good worker at thetime, but you know, and that’s I mean I in theory my my
42-year career wasshould have been nipped in the bud by right after your
first three months. Well, they call it awall. You know, you were a I was
awol. I didn’t call insick. I didn’t take leave. I just never came back one
day. I was, you know, I was young. I you knowwhat I know? It’s a such a
Seinfeld kind of moment.And and so, uh I think there’s so many funny things
about that story. One is ofcourse you you didn’t you didn’t notify anybody.
You just like walked out thedoor and then and then the other funny thing is
that you just decided to walk back in like it’s like nobody wouldnotice. You
just hey I’m back at work. Take a shot. What are they going to do? I had an
ID badge and everybody took itaway. So I walked in and went down to the
office and told them I had some personal issues and I’m back to work.And so
it worked. But but I I’ll tell you as as I went up through management,I you I
told this story to like rank and file employees and just trying toencourage
them. We used to have like the employee development conferences and stuff. I
said, “Look, I had an accidental career and I should have beenfired and
I’m standing here as your district manager right now.” So, it was a it
it you know, you take those thoseopportunities or those issues and and you
turn them into into a story for people. So, Absolutely. Well, you’re a
greatstoryteller. I’m sure we’ll we’ll get it. It’s the Irish in me, you
know. Yes. No, no doubt. Uh, okay. So, onelast thing about that story is,
isn’t it ironic that the postal service neversent the notice? They didn’t mail
the letter. They didn’t mail the letter that youwere fired. That’s They had a
lot of people. They were worrying about it stuff. Well, anyway, that’s a
that’s a greatstory. Okay. So where did you now this this incident at that
point you’re in like you youcame back after the 3 months you’re there for the
winter at that point did you just stay you just continued workingthere for
the postal service and that turned into a 43y year career okay sowe have we
have some time I want let’s let’s walk through that career becauseit’s really
interesting where you started and you know you you ended up at the at the
heights in in the postalservice. Sure. Well, I was I was working on the floor
and I was working in in distributionin a large processing center in Carne,
New Jersey. And uh you know, Iwas getting a little bored with it and and and
I actually probably after about five, seven years, I I started findtrying to
find my way into something different in the post service. And so I I ended up
getting anopportunity to work in logistics. And I was, you know, my job was
to go out into a big trucky yard and and and bring inrail vans from from the
rail full of mail and packages and magazines andcataloges and stuff and and
uh and it wasn’t a full-time job, but it was was interesting to me. Then I
helpedget my build up a training. They didn’t have a training program for
expediters. That’s what I you know was was was oneopportunity. and and I
built one so they could teach people how to start working with technology because
we were justbeginning with computers coming in and and uh but it was an
interesting time and uhyou know I had some nice opportunities. I worked in in
the uh uh operations support group and quality and everythinglike that and
just did whatever job anyone needed done and if they needed me to go off
tour, I went off tour, youknow, whatever. and and I was still a craft
employee and I never I hadn’t gotten promotion that that was officialthat
moves you up into what they call EAS or or and I finally got got one of those
jobs but I was working with peopleat the region. I was on a a team looking at
priority mail performance all around the Northeast. I was in going to met
alot of people. You always make connections when you’re out there doing that.
And uh then a guy that I met doing that wasa guy named Henry Panky. And he
was the postmaster of Stanford, Connecticut. Andhe got promoted to the
division manager in New York. And I was part of the New York division.
Uhhuh.And he didn’t know everybody in New York, but he knew me from cuz he
was running that team and I worked for him and did, you know, I think I did
apretty good job for him. So he he brought me over. He was my we use the
term, you know, he was my rabbi. He’sthe guy that looked out for me. African-American
guy and and to this day a good friend and uh I wouldn’t have had42 years in
the pole service if it wasn’t for Henry. So I give him credit for that. You
know that was cool. Um and then you know other opportunitiescreate themselves
and you just got to be willing to try different things. Uh I ended up going
from uh the New Yorkmetro to Washington with a guy named Jack Potter was
running some uh some programs downthere in headquarters and he later became a
postmaster general. M so he was another guy that was very goodfor my my
business and uh my business development and went to Northern Virginia from
there. Iwas running plants up in the New Jersey area, New York area and
stuff, you know, acting. I was in West Jersey andfew other places and then I
ended up in Merritt, New Virginia as a plant manager. Pretty large plant
about 2,000employees and couple of million pieces a day and serving a million
two million residentsand uh did well there. got promoted to district manager
in Washington DC. Tough job.Why was that a tough job? Because it’s right
there in Washington. You’re you know, you’re you’re everyevery senator and
congressman is a customer because they all live there and they’re all, you
know, complaints and issues and and uh it was a prettydiverse group. Uh we
were in Washington DC. We had southern Maryland. We had,you know, way down to
the tip of Point Lookout all the way up in Montgomery County. Andum it was a
it was a tough job. There’s like I think I had 14,000 employees and and uh
and and and really I think it wasone of the more difficult jobs in the postal
service because it was Washington DC and everybody was watching and you had
to do everything well.Yeah. And so uh that I was doing that for a while and
then got asked to join a somebody was really serious aboutgrowing sales and
revenue and and I got asked to join that. So I took over the northeast region
sales. Mhm.Did that for a year and then uh they created a business unit about
packages.Uh and I had the experience with Priority Mail and this guy named
John Kelly invited me to come join his team.They were based down in Roswell,
Georgia. I didn’t stay there. I stayed there a lot, but I stayed up in the
NewJersey area. And uh so it’s a uh it was it was a good opportunity at the time.This
is like 1999. Mhm. Um we were having meetings. This is like, you know, when
e-commerce was juststarting, Amazon had just started up, you know, Bezos
would go to meetings and things like that in those days and anduh so it was a
good time to to go in there and and work and then they decided to shut it
down and I took over in adifferent role that that that it was expedited
package services and uh andthen worked my way up and then I was a VP of
ground and then moved into technology to build the rebuild some ofthe
tracking systems, the measurement systems, how to put in intelligent mail
barcodes and put it in intelligentlicense plates on everything we do and
built that all out and then they moved me into sales and marketing back for
acouple of years. I like the CIO job. That was fun. But then I closed my
career out with three or four years in the uh CMO job.Yeah. Well, that’s a
that’s a very brief summary of a long 40 years. I got it done in 40
seconds.You did that was that was amazing. I think there are a couple
interesting things about that story. one is the waythat you built and
maintained relationships and how meaningful thatwas for your career in the
postal service. No, people look, you got to look out for people and people
look out for you. It’sit’s if you you know, I I think back then I I didn’t
think that I didn’tthink what I was doing was mentoring, but you were being
mentored by people that were that were looking out for you, giving you
opportunity. And then lateron in my career, I was able to mentor other
people. So yeah, I think that was an important issue inuh and treat people
well, you know, that was, you know, I think if you I never was a a tough
manager. We just we askedquestions and we got answers and we drove them
through. I used to have a little fun and when I was uh started asCIO to CMO
and we had house rules and it was like 20 different statements thatyou know
over a period of time and a lot of questions, different issues. We created
these house rules and and theywere just, you know, um what what would be a
good one? Um hope is not astrategy. Well, it’s the essence of marketing if
you think about it. You’re going to throw something out there and hope people
buy it. Butbut I had I had somebody that came to me and said, “Well, we
hope to have that done next week.” I said, “I hope it’s not a
strategy. We need to I need toknow when you’re going to have that done.”
So, we we ended up with like 20 little sayings and one of them was uh Kamitsu
and wewere lean company. So we were doing lean six sigma and stuff and we
were doing the gimbal walks and all that stuff andI I said well that’s a
commitsu issue. I they said what’s that? said, “You can’t make this
up.” Because it was itwas like something that no way it should have
happened. And then, you know, then it like that got a life of its own
andpeople would say it all the time. That’s commitsu that Don’t worry about
that. We’ll fix that. You know, sobut you once again, it was just my own
little stick to get people focused onthese are the things there’s, you know,
data is all we do. It’s got to be credible, you know, little just
littlethings, you know, that that became important to me. And I and I in a
repetitious way became important toeveryone else. Yeah. I I think you have a
a great way of breaking down complex issues and andsimplifying them so
everybody can understand and get on board. And that’s one of the obviously
one of yourstrengths. Uh and and the other thing we we talked about relationships
and building partnerships as you wentthrough your career. Uh but you also
performed well like and you had manymany different roles. Yeah. Pretty
diverse background. Yeah. Yeah. And you always performed andso relationships
are great but you had the performance to back it. And so when somebody
thought hey I need a guy youwere kind of a natural let’s call Jim. He can
Yeah I mean you got to be curious.Curiosity is a virtue right? I I I try to
pride myself on on to this day. I getup in the morning, first hour I’m
reading to seeing what’s going on in the world of logistics, e-commerce,
businesslife, you know, whatever. But it, you know, I think it’s interesting
is that you I I when I was aplant manager, I learned from from just watching
people. I could walk out and give them direction on what to do.Or I could ask
10 questions and let them figure it out and then give them the credit for it.
So, I was trying to change something on a a distribution uhoperation and I I
just didn’t like the layout. But I could come in and said, “Move all
this stuff around.” Butinstead you you go in and say well why do we do
it that way? Well we’ve told them that and then you start getting feedback
from theemployees doing the work which is the essence of lean right six sigma
you want to get the people involved in it and uhand after five questions I
said well you want to try it want move it around and try it you guys try it
but it was just what I wanted to dobut then it became their idea then they
work harder to make their idea work. Sure. So and you go through life doing
thatyou know try to ask questions and make make it someone else’s idea. Let
them have the credit. It’s fine. As long asyou get the the result, you know.
Yeah. It’s the It’s the give a man a fish or teach a man a fish
principle.Yeah. Absolutely. Of getting people engaged. Uh which is also a
thing that you do.You have this in you have this curiosity. If anybody spends
time with you, you have a curiosity about peopleand about what they’re doing
and about their business and and so I think that’s meaningful for for people
when youengage with them. I think that, you know, I can remember going on
sales calls and and and at the end of themeeting, you know, we have a good
good discussion. I’m I’m CMO or whatever. I was might then when I was doing
sales, Iwas associate VP of sales in the Northeast. And and at the end of it,
I’d say, can I can I you know, it was shmostly shipping. And I’d say, can I
see the warehouse? And the guy’ be like, why do you want to see the
warehouse? Isaid, I’m an operations guy. I want to see how you do things and
stuff. And I would just that was their world. And I showed aninterest in
their world and walk their world with them. and and and congratulate, oh,
that’s really smart. That’s a good idea. And so, you know, itit ended the
sales call, but on a real positive note that I had interest in their
business. I wasn’t just in theretrying to get them to write a check to me
type scenario, you know. So, yeah. And it it it’s authentic. I mean,there’s
an authenticity to it and, you know, everybody can can spot someone who
isYeah. doesn’t have your best interest at heart. So anyway, what in in those
43years did did you have a favorite role? I like the CIO job I think the
best. But butthat’s you know at a headquarters level. I think my best job is
is a plantmanager job because when you get to the highest levels of the
organization there’s a lot of strategies and they’relong-term and they’re
short-term and midterm strategies. But when you run a processing center, the
mail comes in inthe morning and the afternoon. They work it and they work
until the following morning at 6:00 and that’s it and you’redone. And there’s
a sense of daily accomplishment that you don’t get when you’re doing
strategic, you know, when you’re doingCIO work and you’re building systems
are going to take a year to build or whatever or you’re or even even
generating revenue. You cansay, “I got a goal. I’m going to grow$2
billion dollars this year.” But then you got to dig in and it’s
long-termplanning and and and results. But when you’re running a processing
center and and I’ve talked to postmasters aboutthis, you know, every day they
come in and they have a 50 routes and they have 50 people going out and
delivery and youwant to get them home safe and you want to get all the mail
delivered and all the packages delivered. Mhm. There is a sense of
accomplishment on ona job like that. Every day it’s done. It’s like you build
your Absolutely. If you’re a plumber and you put a new bathroom in and when
it’s done, you havea sense of accomplishment. take a picture. Yeah,
absolutely. I feel the same way. Do you think your experience ofstarting, you
know, you started kind of at the very low enddistribution in in college and
you worked your way through the organization.So, tell us about how meaningful
that is for you and and can be for people instarting low and learning the
organization as you work. Not. We were just talking a little while ago, but Imean
I had a woman that worked for me and and she was a secretary and she wanted
to do other things. And I said,”All right, you’re going to I’m going to
be a little hard on you. You’re going to have to go off onto other you’re
going to go on the night shift. You’re goingto go to the 3 to 12 or you going
to the midnight to 5.” And I’ve done this with many people. And I said,
“You have toknow the core business. The postal service is an operations
culture and you really need to understand what they do,you know, logistically
and and processing wise and delivery wise. Um, that said, I did it myself. I
I I was aplant guy and I went out and I I I begged to go on a a review of of
whatwhat goes on in a post office. I never worked in a post office, which
came in handy, you know, a couple years laterwhen I became district manager.
now in charge of a 100 post offices and I had a little bit of a sense from
yeahfrom being on those function four reviews of of what goes on. So you got
to you got to keep learning. you don’tdon’t close the door on learning issues
and and uh and I and develop people thatsame way just all right you want to
do this and we were just talking about someone in the post service I’ll leave
them nameless but she she wanted to golearn operations and I got her out and
she was a postmaster in a in a big city and then she was a plant manager in a
ina major plant and then she became a district manager and and she’s back in
headquarters working right now. I thinkshe’s probably the smartest person in
the whole place. But but she took the time and the effort to learn the
wholecore business and you have to do that. This the opportunity is there.
That’s not every company works like that, butthe post service will work like
that. So yeah. And if you spend time in operations, you got credibility that
you might not havelike the people in the field kind of look at headquarters
like, you know, a bunch of pencil pushers, you know, typescenario. They do.
That’s in the postal service. I mean I think that applies outside as well
butI think so. Yeah. And and but the point is that you have some credibility
that you ran I ran a plant. I ran a district.I ran four states type scenario.
I was mossing great lakes for a year andso you’re responsible for a lot of
geography a lot of people and and you learn from that though that youknow
that’s the key thing for me. It didn’t mean I didn’t like doing operations. I
was intrigued by growingrevenues and that was my next kind of shift you know.
Yeah. Well, and for for the culture ofthe organization, having people who
have come up from the bottom and have learned all of the different pieces of
it. Likeyou said, I think there’s a lot of power in that and and for the
credibility of the organization.Well, I mean, not to pick on the previous
postmaster general, Mr. DeJoy, he did some good stuff, but but he camein from
the outside. And the last guy that came in from the outside was a guy named
Marvin Ren. and he had hestruggled. Mhm. And uh um but I mean the the reason
why it’s a struggle is you got to adapt tothe culture and that it’s a culture
that values operations and and values youknow people coming up through the
through the through the system through through different jobs and stuff
youknow so I think you know that’s one company but I think other companies
run that way you know.Yeah if you think about it. Absolutely. only from my my
when consulting when I retired I went out andworked in companies and they all
do it a little different but they do value their people and they people that
are smartand smart ideas are willing to do different things try different
jobs yeah well the lessons that you’retalking about just because it’s your
postal experience those those lessons apply in any business so I think it’svery
trans transferable you are also in you’ve been involved in reallyinteresting
and impactful full business units and ideas that you took from, youknow, step
one all the way through to completion and those were really methose have been
really meaningful in the life of the postal service. Do you wantto talk about
any of those things? I mean the the easy one for me is you were engaged in
because everybody knows this.If it fits it ships like that was your deal. So,
that was the priority mail box and it’s a it’s uh it was a convenienceplay
and and because we realized that people just wanted something to stick the
box in and they didn’t care about the zone and weight and stuff. So, thatwas
the premise. We put it together. We had a great support staff and the
peoplein the pricing and costing in the postal service and the guy nailed it.
We had this cubic it’s going to be.34 cubicfeet and we think on average
according to all our science that it’s going to be about five. It’s gonna
average aboutfive and a half pounds. And and and he nailed it. It ended up
being six pounds. And then but it was it was funny. Ittook almost a year to
get it out of the building because there wasresistance to it because it’s not
the way we’ve always done it, right? So that’s normal in businesses.
You’retrying to change the process. But I mean flat rate boxes the first
year, first couple of months we did $600 millionworth on and and then you
know once again it I shifted it rolls and they came up we came up with they
startedwith the if it fits it ships right and uh and that was a good message
for for forthe flat rate box and there was multiple size. We did one for
military which was very important to me personally and uhwe got that out
there. So it was a discounted one at the time. It was desert storm time way
back then. And sopeople were sending provisions and everything overseas. So
that was good. Uh so we had in a flat rate envelope, asmall box, a big box,
and a military box. And um took off like wild and andit’s it it was all a
convenience play. And meanwhile, people that were sophisticated shippers were
using itmaybe for zone 8, but they weren’t using it for everything, right?
But they were smart and we were like, “Look, we’re going to make money
on allthis stuff.” Yeah. And we did. And we made we were profitable on
it. And and in the firstyear, I remember first six months, the CFO at the
time was called me up all upset because he read an article thatsomebody’s
using it for tire chains and someone’s using it for coins and a boxes
weighing 34 pounds andYeah. So we we we we had rules on the what’s the word?
Tens tensil strength of thecorrugated. Right. Yeah. Right. And so we had that
and when we said you couldn’t reinforce and change thedimensions of the box,
you could use packing tape and stuff. Mhm. And you know, randomly, one out of
everymillion packages was 40 lb. But that’s okay, you know, because the rest
of them were 3 and4 and we made bigmoney on those because we were charging at
a 5 and a half, six pound rate. So, it it worked out pretty well.Yeah. We we
I mean, we utilized that quite a bit with our customers. Oh, sure.And
customer we I think we had one customer was shipping gold coins and you know,
that’s small package.Yeah. but dense and you know a little weight to it. A
little weight to it but fit perfectlywithin that Yeah. within that program.
No, look, I think it was a a good use ofof the for the pulse. It was an
easier transaction in retail. So, it saved you a couple minutes every
day.Absolutely. You know, I’m it’s it’s still out there, but it’s kind of
been relegated to, youknow, ground advantage is the new the big thing. Well,
I want to I want to get into I want to dig into that a littlebit, but but I
have a few more questions before we get down to where the what the post
office is today. I think the otherthing I like that uh you were you were the
kind of the mastermind behind is umutilizing partnerships in in creating in
particular last mile that became animportant issue and and that was you know
a guy named John Kelly that was his idea and and uh the first use case of
oflast mile was a little company called Airborne Express if you remember them
they were based out of Seattle a guynamed Jerry Hemstead is still around I
still see him at trade shows andBut he was the first use case the the first
year we had and that’s when they shut our unit down. So John is the boss.He’s
the president of this package uh package unit I think what it was called and
I was associate VP of marketing andand um but we put this out and started
getting it into post office. In the first year we had uh 8 million
packagesand then they shut down that unit and then I took over as the manager
of package services based out of Washington. Now we’re we got rid of theAtlanta
office and uh and and and it’s we just started getting people together and
and then that was in like 2002 and2006 was the first time they passed a law
called uh PAEA and and PAEA allowedthe postal service for the first time to
enter into contracts with with shippers. You know, in in 2002, we’re trying
tofigure out how to grow our business. And Amazon was paying the same as a as
headquarter a hardware store,and Nordstrom was paying the same as a hardware
store. And and and they had one had 5 million packages, and the otherhad
five, and they were all paying the same price. And that didn’t make any sense
for the commercial side of the business. And uhso, and then we’ve raised
rates. We tried to do some things with priority mail. The operations people
were trying to fix service. So, they outsourced alot of the work to uh to
Emory Air Freight. and and that ended up having a big expense hit. So all of
a sudden,Priority Mail got a 30% price increase and then we lost all those
shippers. Mhm. And so we were sitting there with withLast Mile and I got kind
of challenged on it. Why are we moving people to this lowcost parcel select
last mileproduct? I said because it beats zero. And I got it getting a little
heat on that one because I was being a little flippant because I I said look,
youdon’t realize what you’re going to lose. And they lost 300 million
packages over the course of a year and a half. day thewe we lost it and it
was because the price was they weren’t going to pay a 30% price increase back
thenthere was other choices you know UPS was there FedEx was there you didn’t
have the regionals yet and stuff so anywaythat took off and and my you know
my last year there we were at 3.5 billionlast mile packages now obviously
Amazon was a big player on that they came in but the first contract we signed
waswith FedEx second one was with UPS and we were delivering for them and
They started giving us hundreds of millionsof packages because they didn’t
want to go to rural areas and frankly they didn’t have good density in
residentialareas. So it grew nicely for a few years there. Yeah. And it just
seems like such aperfect fit. Perfect. Well, I mean it it’s a perfect model
and and you knowthere’s issues with everything that you do, but but when
you’re talking about just so so listeners who are unfamiliar,Last Mile, the
the product that you’re talking about is uh other carriersutilizing the
postal service. That’s right. For the last mile delivery becausethe postal
service hits every porch every day. It’s very it’s very low. It’s a
lowcostdrop off, right? So you go in there, you pull up, you drop a pallet in
there. There’s a hundred little boxes in thatpallet and you drive away and
you go to another post office and drop them off. And that’s DHL, OSM, all these
greatconsolidator companies, International Bridge, ACI, you know, etc. Uh DHL
was a big player, UPS was a bigplayer, FedEx was a good player, Amazon became
a very big player in it, and it worked very well. And andhonestly, I I think
that I understand where DeJoyy’s thought process was on this because he was
the one that kind ofstarted shutting it down is he wanted it hollows out the
network. That’s what a a guy from Germany told me once. Why doyou do that?
You hollow out your network. You let people have access all the way to your
post office, then you’re not efficient in your transportation.And it’s kind
of a valid concern. Um but the post service was just a littledifferent. And
and you know, I would argue that UPS and FedEx were way more efficient than
the postal service intheir transportation and processing network. And it was
it was like an 8020issue and and and at the time the postal service