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[Applause]
Neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor
gloom of night shall keep these couriers
from the swift completion of their
appointed rounds. Now, this phrase was
carved on the main post office building
in New York City. And for this reason,
many people came to believe that it
represented the motto of the postal
service. But this phrase actually comes
from an ancient account of the heroic
messengers during the Greek and Persian
wars written 2500 years
ago. But the sentiment still remains the
same that no matter the circumstances,
the mail must flow.
And for this reason, it's come to
reflect the core mission of the US Post
Office, which is to ensure that all
Americans at every address, no matter
how remote, stay
connected. Now, this core mission is at
risk. The postal service is failing
financially.
It is creating an environmental
mess and it is eroding the public trust
as it struggles to adapt to a digital
world. Now the mail has played a central
role in our history including right here
in Breenidge,
Colorado. We have our own heroic
messenger and his name was Father John
Dyer.
He was a minister, a minor, and a
mailman. And in the mid mid 1800s,
Father Dyer would strap on homemade
snowshoes and make the dangerous trek
over the mountain passes between
Breenidge and
Leadville to minister and deliver the
mail. But Father Dyer was more than a
mailman. He was a connector. and he
played a vital role in connecting many
isolated mining communities that played
an important part in Colorado becoming
our 38th state in
1876. But Father Dyer's story is also an
important reminder that the mail is more
than just about delivering
letters. It is about
resilience, public service, and
connecting people.
Let's fast forward a century or two and
for me I have this image like a Norman
Rockwell painting of a courageous postal
carrier trudging through the snow like a
blue suited Santa
Claus delivering letters and packages to
152 million homes six
days every week. Now, for generations,
collecting the mail was more than just a
daily routine. It was a brief moment of
excitement. What would arrive that day?
Perhaps it was a card from a loved one,
a long awaited check, or maybe the
latest issue of your favorite
magazine. You see, we depended on this
regular type of mail to connect and
communicate.
Businesses would send us bills and
statements and notices in the mail. We
would write checks. We would write
letters. We'd fill out forms and we
would return them in the mail. Having
stamps in your house was essential as
milk and eggs. In fact, you could buy
stamps at the grocery
store. But today, this regular type of
mail is no longer central to how we
connect and we communicate.
Now, you've probably heard the term big
tobacco or big
pharma. Tonight, I'm going to introduce
you to a new term. It's called big
mailing. You see, in 2023, the US
mailing industry generated
$1.9 trillion in economic activity. That
makes it significantly larger than big
pharma and big tobacco combined.
Just to put that into context for you,
that means that on average, every
mailbox you have ever seen, mine, yours,
everybody in this rooms, those mailboxes
are worth between 10 and
$12,000 per
year. Your mailbox is a really big
business. And the US mailing industry,
big mailing, they want to keep it that
way whether you like it or not.
In my professional life, I study the
customer communications industry. And
the way I normally describe this is the
things that arrive in your mailbox. Or
should I say the things that used to
arrive in your mailbox. You see, today
most of us get our regular mail. Those
monthly bills and statements, they show
up in our email inbox, not our mailbox.
Mobile apps, websites have replaced
stamps and
envelopes. And as this regular mail
starts to disappear from our daily
routines, the postal service is looking
to another type of mail to keep the
system
afloat. You know it as junk
mail. You see, today we are going to our
mailboxes less and less often. Not
because we're too busy, but because we
don't expect to find anything of value
there anymore. What used to be a daily
routine has turned into a
realworld spam folder, chuck full of
junk mail and solicitations we did not
ask for.
It's estimated that each one of us
receives between 300 and 850 pieces of
unsolicited advertising mail every year
and that as much as 60% of that goes
directly into
landfills. Now, you would expect the
environmental impact of this is pretty
big and it is. 100 million trees are
harvested to make the
paper. And the production, delivery, and
disposal of junk mail is the carbon
footprint equivalent of 2 million cars
on the road every
year. But here's the
kicker. Junk mail, direct mail,
advertising mail, as the industry would
like me to call it, is actually
extremely effective. In fact, it is one
of the most engaging forms of
advertising there is. You see, every
piece of advertising mail you've seen in
your mailbox, its goal in life is to
make this dangerous journey from your
mailbox to your kitchen
counter. Most will not survive that
journey, right? But the few that do make
it all worthwhile for
marketers and the rest that go into the
bin, they are just casualties in the war
for our attention. A battle that is
being fought at 152 million homes just
about every day of the
week. So you might ask, why why is this
stuff so prevalent?
Well, it's because in part it is so
effective, but it's also because we have
some of the lowest postage rates in the
entire
world. There are only four countries
that have a lower first class postage
rate than we do here in the United
States.
And this combination of effectiveness
and low postage rates has created a
toxic sort of
codependency between the US postal
service and big mailing.
You see, the postal service has given up
value to get the volume that it needs to
continue to deliver mail to every
address, no matter how
remote. Now, the postal service is a
self-supporting government-owned entity,
and it has been losing money for years.
Last year, it lost $9.5 billion dollar.
This year it's expected to lose six or
more. The delivering for America plan
says that they're hoping to break even
by the year 2030. Fingers
crossed. Now, I don't know how many
other privatelyowned businesses could
function in this way, but there's a fair
question to ask, which
is, is the post office too big to
fail? And if it
does, who's going to pay that bill?
And we know the answer. We are. The
American taxpayers are going to pay that
bill. But there is perhaps a deeper and
more concerning issue. You see, our
faith and our trust in the postal
service is quickly
eroding. Delivery times are lagging and
frequently unpredictable.
I recently documented the case of a
letter that was mailed to me from a town
23 miles
away. And this letter traveled all the
way to Buffalo, New York, traveling
3,000 mi to come
back, taking 12 days to reach my home,
only 23 miles away. And as perplexing as
this is, unfortunately, it is not
uncommon. We're also all familiar with
home deliveries and online shopping, but
those boxes, those packages, those
parcels, those items are completely
overwhelming the postal
system. especially impacted our local
post offices like we have here in
Breenidge and their delivery vehicles.
You are probably see probably
experiencing delays and frustration in
receiving parcels and packages through
the
mail. You see the postal
system was built to deliver letters not
boxes, packages and parcels.
But there is one more element that is
eroding our faith in the postal system.
You see, in 2021, I lost my oldest son
to ventil
poisoning. And that is a tragedy that
was tied to counterfeit pills being
delivered through the mail. And
sometimes I wonder to myself, I think
whatever happened to that blue suited
Santa
Claus. But despite all of
this, the male remains essential to all
of
us. You see, the mail doesn't care about
your age, your race, your background,
your immigration status. All you need is
a
stamp and an
address, making the mail one of the most
accessible forms of communication that
we
have. And for people in remote
communities, uh the elderly, those with
limited internet access, the mail is an
essential lifeline for things like
healthc care information, financial
documents, and other critical
information. In the 2024 presidential
election, 35% or about 53 million votes
were cast using early and mail-in
ballots. And there's one more thing
about the mail that you may not think
about, and that is that the mail plays
an increasingly important role in our
digital futures. You see, we live in a
world of artificial
intelligence and
authenticity will become perhaps one of
the greatest challenges we will face as
a society. And the male will play a role
in helping validate not only our
identity, but the fact that we're
actually a real human being.
So if the mail fails, millions of people
are going to be cut off from an
essential
service. Our digital futures could be
significantly more challenging and our
very
democracy could be put at
risk. So the challenges that we face are
not unique. In fact, nearly every postal
system in the world is dealing with
similar issues. So the question
is how do we secure a future for the US
mail that is
sustainable and
efficient? Well, in certain
countries, advertising mail, junk mail,
has been banned entirely. It doesn't
exist. And digital communications have
taken over just about all other forms of
regular mail.
Elsewhere, postal systems charge
considerably more than we do here for
all classes of mail, which has forced
businesses to find alternative ways of
communicating with their
customers. Also, in some countries,
consumers like us have much more control
over the use of their data, including
the things that arrive in their mailbox.
And
lastly, do we really need the mail
delivered six days a
week? In New Zealand and just recently
in the UK, it's been announced that
they're going to reduce mail delivery
from six days to just three days a week
for certain classes of
mail. You see, it's my belief that
physical paper mail should be uncommon.
It should be environmentally sustainable
and it should be
reliable. And if it is, it's going to
actually our it's actually going to
increase the our the value to us as it
focuses on essential communications and
secure package
delivery. So transforming the US Postal
Service is not about
nostalgia or making the mail great
again.
It's about returning to the core
mission. It's about returning to the
core
mission of serving all of us at every
address, no matter how remote, and not
just bending to the needs of the big
mailing industry.
You see, we need a postal service that's
financially stable, that charges for the
value that it delivers. We need one that
is respectful of the earth and
eliminates waste wherever
possible. And we need the mail to serve
as a very important anchor point in an
increasingly digital world.
Neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor
gloom of night shall keep these couriers
from the swift completion of their
appointed
rounds. The mail has a rich history. It
is a legacy that has touched all of us.
So the next time you go to your mailbox,
think about those heroic messengers.
Think about what the mail has meant to
you. And consider what Father John Dyer
might say about our appointed
rounds. That they're not just about
delivering letters. It's about
delivering human
connection. And that is what we must
preserve. Thank you.
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