It started with this letter.

June 5, 2021

Mr. Ron Bloom, Chairman
POSTAL BOARD OF GOVERNORS
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW Washington, DC 20260

Dear Mr. Bloom:

With urgent caution and due respect, I beg that you resist moving forward with the recently introduced 10-Year Plan for the United States Postal Service. DELIVERING FOR AMERICA, as a plan, seems to be created in a manner that HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW states will assure certain failure.

With the recent additions to the Postal Board of Governors, the American people were promised more diverse perspectives and vision. Yet, this Board (and all Postal Service leadership) may benefit from a different diversity. All inclusive, the business experience influencing the future of the Postal Service brings a dearth of mass market, consumer products experience. Unfortunately, lessons learned from investment banking, trucking logistics, union advocacy, and contract manufacturing apply to the strategic planning needs of the citizen-owned United States Postal Service with the same value as one’s accrued success in the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” Like the schoolyard game, we can expect the whole of this plan to succeed with similar probability (34%).

Mr. Bloom, the enclosed essays combine with the document I sent to you (and all key Postal Service influencers) last February entitled: REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS: SENATE HEARINGS HELD AUGUST 21, 2020. I hope the academic-based criticisms and historically proven best-practices discussed within these can prevent the Postal Service from being led into the tempting quicksand of cost-based, accounting-oriented business thinking. The ideas sold within DELIVERING FOR AMERICA parallel the thinking that led Studebaker, Smith Corona, RCA, Kodak, and so many other great American brands to their ends. While so much seems logical and promising within the new plan, it will not work. Please allow the enclosed experience and perspective to help.

With deepest respect,
Thomas Allen [nee] Malm
Postal Worker​​