Company Name: United Parcel Service, Inc.

Founders: Company was formed by a merger

Industry: Air Courier

History:

The package delivery company’s origins go as far back as 1907. In that year, budding entrepreneurs Claude Ryan and Jim Casey formed the American Messenger Company in Seattle, Washington.

Five years later, the company got its first delivery vehicle. It also merged with competitor Evert McCabe and became Merchants Parcel Delivery. Consolidated delivery was first practiced during that time, which involved the utilization of a single vehicle to deliver multiple packages addressed to a single area.

The label “United Parcel Service” was first adopted in 1919.

1930 saw several changes, some of which greatly empowered the company. These were:

· The company’s consolidated services were made available in New York.

· They expanded to other large Midwestern and Eastern cities in the country.

· The label “United Parcel Services” was used for the company’s operations all over the country.

· UPS vehicles were all painted with the standard Pullman brown.

In 1975, the company commenced making its services available to all of the 48 contiguous states of the U.S. It was also in this year that it began to operate in Canada; on February 28 of that year, a single delivery vehicle began making rounds in Toronto, Ontario. A year later, it expanded into Europe, starting with West Germany.

UPS Next-Day Air Service was launched in 1982 and six years later UPS Airlines started operating.

On December 20, 2004, UPS bought Menlo Worldwide Forwarding, which enabled it to enter the heavy freight business.

On August 5, 2005, Overnite Transportation was acquired by UPS. It was renamed UPS Freight on April 28, 2008.

UPS completed its purchase of one of the biggest parcel carriers in the UK, LYNX Express Ltd, on October 3, 2005.

Currently, with more than 15 million packages a day as its delivery rate, the company is the biggest package delivery company in the world. As of 2007, it had 483,000 employees and $49.692 billion in revenue.

Leadership:

· D. Scott Davis – Chairman and CEO

· John J. Beystehner – SVP, COO, and Director; President, UPS Airlines

· David P. Abney – SVP and COO; President, UPS Airlines