Des Moines Business Record
11-24-07
Chief to lecture at Iowa State
Frederick Smith, chairman, president and CEO of FedEx Corp., who has been
called the "father of the overnight delivery business," will deliver the sixth annual
Manatt-Phelps Lecture in Political Science at Iowa State University on
Tuesday, Dec. 4. He will speak on "Trends and Issues in the World Marketplace"
at 8 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. The lecture is free and open to
the public.
Smith started the express transport business in 1971, raising $80 million to
launch the company with a fleet of 14 jets. In its first two years of operation,
FedEx lost $27 million. "Everything was going wrong, except the fundamentals of
the business were proving every single day that the idea was right," Smith said in
a biography posted online by the American Academy of Achievement, which
inducted him as a member in 1998. Last year the Memphis-based company
posted revenues of $32.3 billion.
Thomas and Elizabeth Phelps and Charles and Kathleen Manatt established the
annual lecture, which focuses on significant developments in international
political economy during the preceding year, and how the issues affect and are
affected by Iowa.