Changing How the World Does Business

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19 A Little Help from Our Friends

As Thanksgiving 1973 approached, we tried to count our blessings. The mail runs were becoming routine, the Falcon modifications were progressing satisfactorily, and the priority package network now included thirty-eight cities stretching from Boston to Los Angeles and Miami to Minneapolis. Service levels stood at over 97 percent, and package volumes were steadily increasing. Still, we weren’t out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.

Our anxious local lenders were repaid from the private placement funds, and replaced by equally apprehensive and even more rigid national institutions. The stringent covenants that allowed the banks to withhold $5 million of the “committed” funds meant that we would not breathe ...