Daily printout: May 5

Postmaster General David Steiner underscored the Postal Service’s 250-year history of supporting American commerce and communities — and its continued role as both a national institution and an economic platform — in his keynote address at the National Postal Forum in Phoenix on May 4.

USPS is “not just a public institution with a proud history,” he told the thousands of mailing and shipping professionals in attendance. “It is also an economic platform — one that has enabled American commerce for generations, and one that still matters deeply to our country’s future.”

He also stressed the organization’s broader role in the U.S. economy as the center of the $1.9 trillion mailing and shipping industry, and the imperative of changing with the times.

“The Postal Service you rely on is not standing still. Because the pace of change in commerce today is faster than ever, we do not get to choose whether the market changes. We only choose whether we are ready and whether we are agile enough to meet it.”

Other presenters included Doug Tulino, deputy postmaster general; Steve Monteith, chief customer and marketing officer; Greg White, vice president of network solutions; Margaret Pepe, executive director of product solutions; and Juan Nadal, vice president of strategic sales.

The topics they covered in the keynote session included:

• Establishing excellent service performance as the new normal;

• Investing in processing, logistics and transportation to advance modernization;

• Expanding digital and AI-enabled tools, including predictive arrival times, route optimization, fraud detection, contact center improvements, Smart Lockers, self-service kiosks, Informed Delivery and the USPS API Marketplace;

• Strengthening mail and shipping offerings to better support customers in an increasingly digital and AI-shaped marketplace; and

• Building more transparent, market-responsive ways of working with customers and partners to better align its network to business needs.

The National Postal Forum — taking place May 3-6 in Phoenix — is the mailing and shipping industry’s largest annual conference. Participants hear from USPS executives, attend educational workshops and network.

Email us your feedback. Your comments could be included in our “Mail” column.

The Postal Service will release its Route 66 stamps on Tuesday, May 5, during the National Postal Forum in Phoenix.

The stamps celebrate the 100th anniversary of the legendary highway and ongoing efforts to preserve the uniquely American landmark.

Established on Nov. 11, 1926, Route 66 originally stretched about 2,400 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles.

When first mapped, it connected a patchwork of existing roads, mostly unpaved, to form a continuous 2,448-mile highway, passing through eight states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.  

Rather than follow a straight line, Route 66 meandered across the country, linking small rural communities that might otherwise have been bypassed.

Motels, once simple auto camps and tourist homes, flourished into roadside landmarks, while mom-and-pop cafes, drive-in restaurants, souvenir shops, curiosities and neon-lit gas stations along the way turned the journey into an adventure all its own.

Greg Breeding, an art director for USPS, designed the stamps using existing photographs by David Schwartz.

The pane of 16 features vintage cars, historic motels, neon signs and other imagery from each of the eight states along the route, repeated twice. 

The selvage is a photo by Schwartz of an open stretch of Route 66 rolling through hills near Crookton, AZ.

The Forever stamps will be available at Post Offices and usps.com.

Email us your feedback. Your comments could be included in our “Mail” column.