Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator Book

Every day, Federal Express delivers almost three-quarters of a billion packages around the world. It has revolutionized the way business is conducted; "FedEx it" has become a generic instruction, whether Federal Express is actually the carrier or not. Federal Express, and particularly the "hub" concept upon which all overnight package delivery is based, is the brainchild of one man, Frederick W. Smith. Son of the founder of the Dixie Greyhound Bus Line and the Toddle House chain of fast-food restaurants, Smith performed heroically in the Vietnam war, both on the ground and later in the air. In 1970, he got the idea for a streamlined fleet of airplanes, operating from a center (in FedEx's case, Memphis, Tennessee) that could deliver packages anywhere in a day. It was a difficult take-off. On its first day of operation, FedEx delivered six packages. Still, obsessed with his dream, Smith almost single-handedly pressed on - even to the extent of forging papers to save the company from bankruptcy. Finally, in July 1975, FedEx turned a profit for the first time. Today, the company has an annual gross of five billion dollars. An intensely private man, shunning publicity, Frederick Smith has kept his and his company's story to himself. But Vance Trimble, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the tremendously successful Sam Walton, has found out the details and recounts them with tremendous flair. FedEx - and its creator - are American phenomenons. In Vance Trimble they have found a worthy chronicler.