Daily printout: Feb. 18

The Postal Service announced on Feb. 18 that Louis DeJoy, the 75th Postmaster General, has notified the USPS Board of Governors that it is time for them to begin the process of identifying his successor.

The governors of the Postal Service, working with key stakeholders, will now begin the process of identifying an appropriate candidate to serve as the next postmaster general and chief executive officer.

“Louis DeJoy has steadfastly served the nation and the Postal Service over the past five years,” said Amber McReynolds, chairwoman of the USPS Board of Governors. “The governors greatly appreciate his enduring leadership and his tireless efforts to modernize the Postal Service and reverse decades of neglect.” She added that “Louis is a fighter, and he has fought hard for the women and men of the Postal Service and to ensure that the American people have reliable and affordable service for years to come.”

DeJoy stated, “While there remains much critical work to be done to ensure that the Postal Service can be financially viable as we continue to serve the nation in our essential public service mission, I have decided it is time to start the process of identifying my successor and of preparing the Postal Service for this change. The major initiatives we are currently endeavoring are multi-year programs and it is important to have leadership in place whose tenure will span this future period. After four and half years leading one of America’s greatest public institutions through dramatic change during unusual times, it is time for me to start thinking about the next phase of my life, while also ensuring that the Postal Service is fully prepared for the future.

“The Postal Service has ironclad plans to reduce costs by over $4 billion annually, raise revenue by over $5 billion and adjust its operating network to integrate the delivery of all mail and package categories, achieving service standards that make modern-day sense and compete in the marketplace,” DeJoy added. “We are well on our way with these necessary changes, and I have been developing a leadership team whose careers reach further into the future than the one we have today. It is important to me that we timely and methodically bring forth a new postmaster general who understands our mission and can successfully lead our spirited organization. I will be flexible in helping with this transition, and I am confident that with a period of dedicated focus preparing for this change, the Postal Service will be well positioned for future success under the new leadership.”

DeJoy continued, “I am extremely proud of the 640,000 men and women of the United States Postal Service who live, work and serve in every American community. Despite being victimized by a legislative and regulatory business model that produced almost two decades of devastation to their organization and workplaces, they have persevered and embraced the changes we are making in order to better serve their fellow citizens. It has been one of the pleasures of my life and a crowning achievement of my career to have been associated with them and their mission of public service. I look forward to working with them during my remaining time here.”

DeJoy was first asked to lead the Postal Service in spring 2020, a time of tremendous operational and financial crisis for the organization. After many years of strategic neglect and underinvestment in people and infrastructure, he took on the responsibility of leading the Postal Service with the understanding that a massive, long-term transformation and modernization effort was needed. 

Within a year, DeJoy, his team and the USPS Board of Governors developed a 10-year plan to put the organization on a path toward financial sustainability and operational high performance. The Delivering for America plan gave the organization well-defined strategies to establish a best-in-class operational model to drive network efficiency and capability; business model changes to address unsustainable legislative and regulatory mandates; product and pricing strategies to grow revenue; and investment in people, facilities, vehicles and technology to create more effective and modern workplaces.

While only four years into the implementation of the 10-year Delivering for America plan, the strategic path is well defined, and the strategies have been tested and proven effective, and the results to date are impressive. Importantly, the Postal Service successfully undertook the most complicated of ventures — a top-to-bottom organizational transformation — and did so quickly and on an unprecedented scale, while also delivering mail and packages at least six days per week to more than 168 million delivery addresses each day. 

Under DeJoy’s tenure, this disruptive transformation changed practically every process, function and operation of the Postal Service for the better. DeJoy acknowledged that the essential need for change, given the critically distressed financial and operational conditions of the Postal Service, caused service issues for the American people that he wished could have been avoided, but also recognized that the transformation was vitally necessary for the Postal Service to not only survive, but also thrive.  This effort created a new management structure; installed much of a new processing, logistics and delivery network design; invested more than $18 billion to modernize infrastructure; created new products and more rational pricing; and enabled the organization to compete more effectively and to operate at a long-term lower cost.  During this massive transformation and modernization effort, the Postal Service distributed COVID test kits, delivered the nation’s election mail, met the annual holiday shipping needs of the public, and served the American public every day. These efforts resulted in $1 billion in controllable income and $140 million in generally accepted accounting principles income, rather than losses, during the first quarter (Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2024) of fiscal year 2025.

“I commend Postmaster General DeJoy for inspiring the Postal Service with strategic direction, a competitive spirit, and a culture of achievement that comes from the successful implementation of large-scale change,” said McReynolds. “I have seen this spirit of purpose grow steadily during my time on the board of governors, and I am confident it will continue to grow as progress begets further progress, and the promise of a transformed and modernized Postal Service is fully realized.”