By John Branston
A memorial service for Fred Smith will be held August 11th (his birthday) at FedEx Forum. These quotations were gathered from personal interviews and other sources.
“To put a national hub-and-spokes system in place you have certain parameters where it can be. If you do a hypothetical box, it would start at about Memphis and go up to St. Louis and east to about Columbus, Ohio, and down to just east of Nashville. And you must put your hub in that location. The other criteria were weather, airport infrastructure, political support, but when you put all those things together Memphis came out on top in 1973. Our airport here was way ahead of its time.” (Personal interview, 1996)
“I remember that first night being pretty damn dismal. I learned that salesmen lie.”(Personal interview, 1996)
“We know a lot about how the economy really is doing, and Federal Reserve officials call us all the time.” (Claudia Deutsch in New York Times, 2005)
“It’s my opinion that great companies always improve their competitive positions in economic downturns, and we intend to do just that.” (Associated Press story, 2008)
“FedEx has taken a page out of Alexander the Great’s book. He was better at winning the peace than at winning wars.” (H. Darr Beiser, USA Today, 2008)
“George Marshall may be the greatest figure of the 20th century. He’s the architect of the reconstruction of Europe. He was a very self-effacing man. He refused to write his memoirs because he said (his memories) had been paid for by the taxpayers.” (Beiser, USA Today)
“One of my favorite war movies is Twelve O’ Clock High with Gregory Peck. The more he doesn’t hold people accountable, the worse it becomes. He tries to be too good.” (Beiser, USA Today).
“How could you not put Sam Walton there? He allowed people of modest incomes to have a standard of living they never thought of.” (Beiser asked Smith who should be on a Mount Rushmore for CEOs)
“The honor is a testament to our 290,000 team members who daily go the extra mile to make every FedEx experience outstanding.” (Response to Fortune’s list of Most Admired Companies, 2008)
“We will move on with or without you” (to pilots threatening work slowdown, various daily newspapers, 1998)
“That is of no interest to me. The future is going to be too exciting to spend time thinking about all that has happened to Federal Express in the last 10 years.” (to Robert Sigafoos, author of Absolutely Positively Overnight!, 1982)
“If you keep working at it, in the last analysis you win. They’ve got to kill us 100 times, All we have to do is kill them once.” On airline deregulation bills before Congress, 1977.)
“I figured that any two guys who had the salesmanship to do that were a pretty impressive pair.” – (On the founders of the Smith-backed Alcon movie company who masqueraded as father and son to get a flight to Memphis – no small feat since they were about the same age and one was Black and the other white, as recounted by New York Times, 2008)
“Oil dependence is heading this country toward a major economic disaster.” Jonathan Grella for Securing America’s Future Energy, 2008)
“I believe Memphis will get an (NFL) expansion team.” (Personal interview, 1992)
“Chuck, welcome home.” (To character played by actor Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, 2000. Smith played himself in a cameo.)
“Sam Walton told me many times, retail is about moving things, it’s not about selling things.” (Personal interview, 1995)
“Well, I’m trying to think of one. Give me a minute here. I’ve supported politicians who have won races other than the races they were famous for losing. But I am not a good political person. Let’s see. I supported George Bush, put that in there.” (Personal interview, 1996)
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Let’s get back on the court.” (Tennis doubles match, changeover in air-conditioned tennis house, down 6-0, 5-0 in merciless Memphis summer heat.)
Silence. (asked if the secretive Yale fraternity Skull and Bones was responsible for the fabled Geronimo’s Skull heist.)
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To read more John Branston’s posts, go to categories on the right side of this blog’s home page and select his name.
John Branston has been contributing to Smart City Memphis for four years. Before that he wrote columns, breaking news, and long-form stories for The Commercial Appeal, Memphis Flyer, Memphis magazine, and other print and online publications. He is author of the books Rowdy Memphis (2004) and What Katy Did (2017). He is a journalist and opinion writer. His stories are based on reporting, interviews and quotes supported by notes or a tape recorder. He has written about people who made Memphis what it is, for better and worse; about sleep issues and depression; about racquet sports; and about travel in the South and West.
