The Decisive Moment: How Going Public Changed UPS Forever
Founded in 1907, the United Parcel Service gradually grew from a couple of bicycle messengers into a global presence. By 1975, its trucks could deliver packages to every address in the U.S. Now the company serves more than 200 countries and boasts plenty of impressive numbers: Revenues last year were $51.5 billion, making it almost twice as big as Federal Express. It delivers almost 15 million packages a day. It has one of the 10 largest airplane fleets in the world. It is the second-biggest employer in the U.S. after Walmart.
The corporate culture is almost as famous. UPS' delivery personnel are cultural icons and employees are known to say, without irony, that they bleed brown. Much of this devotion can be traced to UPS's history as an employee-owned enterprise. Twenty years after its founding, UPS began an employee stock-ownership plan that helped to create a tightly-knit culture. More than most companies, then, the decision to go public was something of a shock — to its 146,000 private shareholders, employees, retirees, and trusts and foundations. We spoke to CEO Scott Davis about what went into that decision. We also spoke to a retired executive, who here describes how the whims of Wall Street have hurt his retirement and harmed the culture of the company to which he devoted his life.