MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — Fred Smith, founder of FedEx Corporation and a Marine Corps veteran, has died.
Smith died on Saturday at the age of 80, sources confirmed to Nexstar’s WREG. FedEx later confirmed his passing. A cause of death was not immediately available.
Smith was born in Marks, Mississippi, in 1944 and earned his degree from Yale in 1966. Following college, Smith joined the U.S. Marines and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He left the military as a captain in 1969 after two tours in Vietnam, where he was decorated for bravery and wounds received in combat.
After four years of service, Smith launched FedEx operations in 1973.
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Smith used a business theory he came up with in college to create a delivery system based on coordinated air cargo flights centered on a main hub, a “hub and spokes” system, as it became known.
Smith once told The Associated Press that he came up with the name Federal Express because he wanted the company to sound big and important when in fact it was a start-up operation with a future far from assured.
At the time, Smith was trying to land a major shipping contract with the Federal Reserve Bank that didn’t work out. In the beginning, Federal Express had 14 small aircraft operating out of the Memphis International Airport flying packages to 25 U.S. cities.
FedEx, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, would go on to become a multi-billion-dollar corporation that serves more than 200 countries.
Smith served as CEO of FedEx until 2022, when he stepped down and became executive chairman. FedEx states that Smith used his time as chairman to focus on “board governance, as well as issues of global importance, including sustainability, innovation, and public policy.”
He told The Associated Press in a 2023 interview that everything he did running FedEx came from his experience in the Marines, not what he learned at Yale.
Though one of Memphis’ best-known and most prominent citizens, Smith generally avoided the public spotlight, devoting his energies to work and family.
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Tennessee state Senator Brent Taylor released a statement on Smith’s passing, calling him a “visionary leader and cherished member of our community.” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said she was “deeply saddened” by Smith’s death. Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) called Smith Memphis’s “most important citizen.”Mr. Smith will be missed.
Smith rarely publicized the donations he and his family made, but he agreed to speak with AP in 2023 about a gift to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to endow a new scholarship fund for the children of Navy service members pursuing studies in STEM.
“The thing that’s interested me are the institutions and the causes not the naming or the recognition,” Smith said at the time.
Asked what it means to contribute to the public good, he replied:
“America is the most generous country in the world. It’s amazing the charitable contributions that Americans make every year. Everything from the smallest things to these massive health care initiatives and the Gates Foundation and everything in between,” he said. “I think if you’ve done well in this country, it’s pretty churlish for you not to at least be willing to give a pretty good portion of that back to the public interest. And all this is in the great tradition of American philanthropy.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
