For 35 years, FedEx has been my university
by Jane Roberts, Memphis Commercial Appeal, 5 February 2008
Sherry Little came to work 35 years ago today for a little upstart called Federal Express.
Today, Little, 61, is the most senior woman on a staff of more than 290,000 employees or contractors worldwide.
For someone who considers herself an everyday Memphian, the prestige of that is hard to describe, but it ranks up there among all the pluses she attributes to a longtime career with FedEx, including what she calls her tuition-free college education.
"FedEx has been my university, and it's also been with me in all the high points of my life," said Little, expecting a very routine day at work today. "I was at FedEx when I met my husband. I was here when I had my child. I've been part time; I've been full time," she said. "And now, my son works at the hub."
In the lead up to the company's formal anniversary April 17, Little is the voice of thousands of people who got their start -- and stock options -- with the Memphis-based giant that today employs 30,000 people locally.
When a pilot friend got her an interview at FedEx, then in Little Rock, Little was in real estate.
"All I could think was 'this is not the airport,'" said Little, who had once scheduled airplanes and car leases.
She started as the lone person in a nearly empty hangar at the airport answering the toll free number, making her the one-person customer service team in Memphis and the precursor to much larger function.
Today, the company gets more than 3 million tracking requests a day through fedex.com.
The story Little likes best happened at a "family briefing" in 1973 that founder Frederick W. Smith called in the pilots' lounge
"He told us that we eventually would be tracing every package and that everyone would be doing it from a computer on their desks," she said.
"We couldn't imagine that because at that time, a computer took up a whole room.
"Obviously, he was a visionary. He was talking about things most of the people in the room had never heard of."
(Yes, she knows Smith but says their paths don't often cross.)
On the topic of tracing, Little was in the room when the concept was born, literally.
"It was so exciting back in those days that the couriers would call in and tell us they had actually made a delivery," she said.
From those bits and pieces, Little made log entries in longhand, noting the customer and when the delivery occurred.
Salespeople, knowing the power of the data, started telling clients that the company could confirm delivery.
"It was just something that happened," Little said. "We were a young company. People liked knowing when their package was delivered. You do what you have to to build business."
She is employee No. 268, putting her in a rarified corporate hierarchy that means her questions tend to get answered. (Her boss, Howard Clabo, for instance, is No. 483,597.)
"Regardless of her low badge number, Sherry would find the answer," Clabo said. "But I have to say it gets done faster with a low badge number and the network of people she knows."
In her time with FedEx, Little -- now administrative assistant in media relations -- has worked in a half-dozen departments, building up a powerful base of company knowledge.
"If I don't know the answer, I usually know who to call," she says with the kind of authority you expect from the school principal. "I don't like to take no for answer. I'm the type of personality that likes to
find an answer to questions."
Besides the bonus of working with all kinds of "young people," the job has kept her current with the computer age and other workplace skills that Little says have been invaluable to her success in the workplace.
"When I wanted to slow down to raise my family, FedEx let me work part time," she said. "It gave me the best of both worlds because it allowed me to grow and be at home with my baby."
-- Jane Roberts: 901-529-2512
