T he last time I saw Fred Smith was just a few weeks ago, at a meeting in Nashville. We were taking a quick break from an intense dialogue with leaders across the political spectr

Veteran Fred Smith, who founded FedEx in 1973 with just 389 team members and grew it into a global shipping giant with 500,000 employees, has died.

Overseeing a fleet of cargo planes from his headquarters in Memphis, he transformed package delivery by promising overnight shipments.