UPS — THE UNTOLD STORY
An excerpt from “The Tightest Ship”
by C.L. Kane
This is the story of the largest, most profitable management owned corporation in the world!

A multi-billion dollar corporation whose theory – “parcels, profits and people” in that order, has mislead the public for years into believing that United Parcel Service is a family oriented company and a swell place to work!

Of the twenty thousand plus, supervisors and managers who own and operate UPS and their mistreatment of 260,000 employees worldwide. Their struggle to keep the ship afloat by stuffing the leaks with their own people!

The Gestapo like tactics used by management to remind each driver how temporary their jobs are. The thousands of men and women on the street, in the hubs, behind the desks and in front of the computer, whose 110% devotion to duty and pleasing contact with the public has built a Hollywood image of UPS that is only true on the surface!

Of its founder, James E. Casey, his legacy and why he was cast aside by the new order at UPS!

They wanted it their way right away! Which worked great for Burger King but not for them!

Here then, is the real UPS based on information I gathered as a driver for 25 years.

It’s the turn of the century. Teddy Roosevelt is calling the shots at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. An unknown artist named Picasso traded paintings for food and a young actress, Helen Hayes debuts on Broadway. Meanwhile a teenage boy sparks a business that ignites a corporation to engulf the world of package delivery forever! The old adage: “from tiny acorns do mighty Oaks grow,” has never been truer than with United Parcel Service.

Their founder, James E. Casey, was born March 29, 1888 in Candelaira, Nevada. Under the sign of the Zodiac he’s an Aries. According to the book, they are courageous, hot tempered, innovative and bold workaholics. No one can describe Casey better than that!

Candelaira was a small mining town in gold rush country, but few found gold there. Casey’s father James Sr., ran a small hotel that saw less gold than most of the miners who spent their lives searching for the yellow stone that made dreams come true.

Mr. Casey’s less than well kept hotel reflected the lack of paying customers. So much so, that he often went on prospecting binges that brought him back home more broke then ever.

James Sr. is again overwhelmed with gold fever when word of the great Alaskan gold rush reaches town. He picks up the family and heads to Seattle, Washington, the closest major city to the Kiondike. Dreams of wealth and fame once more fog his brain and send a fool in search of gold for the last time!

As though reliving a bad dream, James Sr. returns home broke, disillusioned and in bad health.

Young Jim, the oldest of the four Casey children, was only in the sixth grade at the time. At age eleven, he’s forced to quit school to help his ailing father keep the family together! His first job oddly enough was: delivery boy for a local department store. He earned $2.50 a month there and ran messenger for a local telegraph office in his spare time. Jim’s workaholic tendencies had already come to the surface.

He worked the double shifts long enough to build a nest egg. Like his father, he was still prospecting. Still looking for a vain of shiny metal that would make him rich! But not by digging for it in the smoldering desert with the hot sun frying your skin until it turns to leather. No sir, not James E. Casey Jr., his gold mine was right here in this boom town called Seattle.

All he had to do was find it. At fifteen, he and two other messengers formed their own messenger service. But Jim was not pleased with the others lack of dedication and unwillingness to work weekends and holidays. More over, he disliked not having full control of the business. He sold his share to his partners and left town broke and disappointed, he puts his tail between his legs and limps back to Nevada mortally wounded.

Once again he has become his father, a loser! His return to Candelaria is without fanfare. Jobs are few and far between. Jim does odd jobs while socking away every dime he makes. Spending only what it takes to survive.

For a period of time, things seem almost tranquil. Then, the lure of gold boggles his mind. Like a bottle of bad booze, the demons of desire take control again.

He spends all his hard earned money on a mule and the usual mining tools. At day break the fol1owing morning, Jim leads a mule loaded with provisions on a four month trek that ends with the mule leading him back to town more broke then ever.

Once more the search for El Dorado ends with heart break and disgust! But, as though he were in a world championship fight, every time he gets knocked down Jim gets back up. Now it’s back to the part time jobs. You name he did it!

It was a humiliating and humbling time in his life when decisions were made that not only shaped his future, but thousands of others as well At this point in time, bear in mind this loser is just a teenage boy. Down the road, this boy will lead a few good men to form a multi-billion dollar corporation known as United Parcel Service.

Jim earns enough money for a train ticket one way to Seattle and a few bucks for survival until he can find work. Casey the bold, courageous, innovator is about to live up to his Zodiac symbol the Ram. As the train moves along over miles of steel rails on route to Seattle, Jim plots a course with destiny that few acknowledge and the rest deny!

When the train reaches Seattle, the future founder and C.E.O. of United Parcel Service, James E. Casey, steps boldly down on what will be his turf! He carries all his worldly goods in one hand. The wealth he will earn in the years to come will not alter his lack of desire for material things.

Casey soon finds work as a messenger for a large department store. There he meets Claude Ryan another messenger who shares Jim’s desire for the freedom of self employment. The two teenage boys begin saving money toward their own messenger company. In a short time they scrape up $100.00.

The search for office space ends when Ryan’s uncle offers them a 6 x 17 foot room underneath his saloon at the corner of Main and Second Avenue. The rent is $20.00 a month. This included an old lunch bar that served as a counter top for their phones by day and a place to sleep at night.

Casey is now nineteen and determined to succeed. He sees a town bursting at the seams from the gold rush. He knows there is money to be made in the messenger business. But money isn’t enough, Casey wants the best messenger service in all of Seattle. With that thought in mind, he assumes command of the fledgling company.

Ryan and Casey race through the business district placing placards on poles and in store window advertising their new messenger service that boldly states “best service — lowest rates.”

When the sun rose on the 28th day of August, 1907, it shone brightly on the American Messenger Service. Armed with two phones, six messengers and a couple of bicycles, Casey and Ryan open their doors for business.

They quickly establish company rules: only the owners will answer the phones, the service will be open 24 hours a day — 365 days a year including Christmas, messengers will be neat — courteous and fast, and bikes will be used for areas not reachable by trolley or too far on foot!

The boys soon learn that their nine competitors tell customers they have dispatched a messenger when they really haven’t because they did not have one at the time.

Casey and Ryan tell the customer the truth. There are no messengers standing by, they are told when the next one will arrive and they are always on time! Hungry for business, they accept any job including walking dogs, watching stores during lunch hour, carrying groceries and once in a while a little detective work — trailing someone’s wife or girl friend. All for 25 cents per hour. A good messenger could make a $1.00 to $1.50 a day.

Big bucks for a kid in the turn of the century. Their reputation for truth and honor Soon catches up with them. The company grows and expands. More messengers are hired and the bicycles are replaced by new motorized bikes made by Harley Davidson.

One New York department store magnate questioned Casey about delivering small packages. The next day, Casey’s Harleys were rigged with baskets and saddle bags that were the forerunner of the famed package cars that soon followed.

Little did Casey know at that time he was laying the foundation for the largest, most profitable, privately owned corporation in history. It was then that Casey first said: “determined men working together can do anything.”

Jim’s younger brother George signs on in 1911. They worked well together. They were tireless in effort, demanded perfection and often worked without pay!

In 1913, Casey bought the first “package car” a Model T Ford. It could carry 50 packages and only ran on Saturday at first. Casey viewed the Model T not only as the perfect vehicle to propel his company ahead of the competition but as a constant advertising symbol seen by the public daily!

He first painted it red, then yellow. Finally Charles Soderstrom, one of Casey’s top men came up with Pullman brown. Casey loved to ride Pullman coaches whenever he traveled, so accepted the color as symbolic of the giants of the railroad industry. “Perhaps it will make us equally as famous on the streets of America,” Casey proposed!

In 1913 news reaches Casey that Ford will discontinue the “T” at the end of this production year. Casey is outraged. He borrows $10,000.00 from a friend and the two hop a Pullman to Detroit. He’s sure Ford can be talked out of this fool’s move.

But Ford not known for his hospitality, quickly squashes Casey’s plea to continue production of the “T”. When that failed Casey offers to buy as many cars as ten grand would cover. At that time — almost fifty.

He gets jolted out of his chair when old Hank the ‘horse trader’ tries to persuade Casey’s unknown benefactors into investing his money in Ford stock, instead of some little delivery company. Of course he refused.

But what if he had invested the money? Some have said it would have altered history or at least UPS history. Without the new “T” Casey’s progress would have come to a sudden halt, while his friend would have gotten a chair at the long table with the rest of Ford’s board members!

Lucky for Casey, he closed the deal for the last of the T’s to be shipped in crates by rail to Seattle. On arrival, Casey and his crew had the task to finish assembling the new T’s before they could be operated!

By 1918 the Casey crusade has Seattle locked up tight with contracts for same day delivery with every major department store in town. His success only fuels his hunger for more. He targets Oakland County as the next challenge because it’s large, prosperous and badly in need of a good delivery system. He moves his operation to Oakland in 1919. There he changes the name from the Seattle based Merchants Parcel Delivery to United Parcel Service.

UPS does well in California. They continue to grow and expand but at a much slower pace.