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Oz Nelson's Legacy: United Parcel Service CEO Delivered for
Youth in Foster Care
Kent "Oz" Nelson
In 1959, Kent "Oz" Nelson was close to graduating from Ball State University when he got a call from a new company in Indiana where two fraternity brothers had landed positions. A day after graduation, Nelson drove to Indianapolis and met with the sales manager who offered him a job on the spot, saying, "I understand you are a close friend of Lou and Charlie's, and if you are half the man they are, we would love to have you on board." Nelson was so stunned that he didn't even ask what the salary was: "I didn't look at it as a lifetime decision."
But it turned out to be just that – and more. The company getting started in Indiana was United Parcel Service. Two days after graduation, Nelson signed on as a sales and customer service rep in Kokomo, Indiana, and stayed with UPS for 43 years, moving from city to city and rising steadily through the ranks to become chairman and chief executive officer from November 1989 to January 1997.
He didn't stop there. Nelson continually has used his position as a national business leader to provide opportunities for disadvantaged, vulnerable young people. Among his many civic endeavors, he has served on the boards of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative and its parent organization, the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Nelson retired from the Initiative's board last month and from the Casey foundation's board several months ago.
"What motivates Oz Nelson is a commitment to making a difference, and that making a difference requires giving credit to others, respecting the people on the ground doing the work, and helping people become more effective," said Gary Stangler, executive director of the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. "For that, he brings his business skills to bear on measurement and accountability, so that we know if we are doing what we said we wanted to do, and know if we are making a real difference in people's lives. He wants people to be successful, and directs his energy to that. His fingerprints are all over the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, as they are at the United Way of America, the Centers for Disease Control Foundation, and in countless education reform efforts around the country. Personally, he is one of the most wonderful men I have ever encountered, and I have profound respect for him."
Oz Nelson
Born and reared in Kokomo, Nelson credits his mother – who spent countless hours volunteering as a Cub Scout den mother and PTA president – with encouraging him to get involved in things. As a result, he developed wide-ranging passions, such as athletic, theater and music, including playing the drums for rock, modern jazz, Dixieland and calypso bands in high school and college. Her long-term civic involvement rubbed off and led Nelson to throw himself into many charitable organizations later in life.
Nelson's career with UPS took him from Kokomo to Muncie, Indiana, then South Bend, then sales manager in Indianapolis, the regional customer service and sales manager in Chicago, then national customer service and sales manager in New York, gradually adding responsibilities in advertising, marketing, public affairs, financial operations as the corporate headquarters moved to Greenwich, Conn. At one point, he spent two years setting up a UPS operation in Germany. He became vice chairman of the company in 1987, then chairman two years later. In 1991, when the corporate headquarters moved to Atlanta, Nelson packed his bags again.
In an era when hopping from company to company is common, what kept Nelson at UPS? "From the first day I went to work there, I very quickly realized it is a unique organization with unusual qualities and standards and relationships," he says. He points to a culture of promoting from within instead of hiring from outside for key jobs. In addition, UPS employees never used titles within the organization. "I'm Oz to all the people at UPS," says Nelson, referring to the nickname a fourth-grade classmate gave him when the TV show "Ozzie and Harriet" debuted. "No one would ever think of calling me Mr. Nelson." He chuckles as he recalls a meeting early in his career at the Chicago office of a Sears vice president who wanted to meet directly with the president of UPS. Nelson picked up the phone in the Sears' executive's office and called the big UPS boss directly, using his first name and asking if he could meet with the Sears vice president the following week. "The Sears folks were stunned but that's the way we did business at UPS," he recalls. "There was no working up through the chain of command. We were taught that's the way you got things done." UPS employees also were taught to adhere to high standards: Don't promise more than you can deliver but deliver more than you promised. Never criticize competitors. And there were other important touches: "We washed all our equipment every day, and our drivers were well paid and worked hard."
Nelson's early years at UPS were all encompassing, and he moved so often that he didn't have a lot of extra time for charitable organizations. He got involved with United Way a little in Chicago but then became extremely involved, serving on the board in New York and the United Way national board and flying around the country holding breakfasts with other CEOs to help them improve their United Way campaigns. He also served on the United Way board in Atlanta and ran its community campaign. Nelson remains involved with United Way. In fact, he met his wife, Ann Starr, while he oversaw the United Way campaign. She was running The Bridge, an Atlanta nonprofit that provides emergency shelter and care for adolescent runaways. They have been married for 10 years.
Nelson joined the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative board at its start and recalls back then "these poor young people aging out of foster care seemed to be invisible almost to everyone, including myself." He says one statistic particularly haunted him: half of the homeless population was once in foster care. "I think about what it takes for kids with full support at home to get out of high school and go to college or work and then about the total lack of support these kids in foster care have," he says. "No wonder so many end up on the street." When the Initiative was created, "the thinking was we needed to find a way to deal with the problem successfully, demonstrate it in a few locations to make sure it can be done in lots of locations, publicize the need and change the system and gather support to fix this problem," Nelson recalled. "It was tough starting out, but it's been a real success story and will be even more successful when it gets replicated in other places. I'm very optimistic about what we can do to help these kids from foster care get anchored."
Nelson also served on the board of the Annie E. Casey Foundation for 20 years, including 12 as chair, retiring just a few months ago. The Foundation was created by UPS founder Jim Casey and his siblings in honor of their mother. When Nelson first joined the board, the foundation was a small nonprofit with about $200 million in UPS stock. Today, with about $3 billion in assets, the Annie E. Casey Foundation is one of the nation's largest philanthropies supporting vulnerable children and their families. "The Foundation has increased substantially in size and effectiveness," he says. "We've learned so much about how to help children and families. We've become a resource of good information and an example for others around the nation to follow."
Nelson is proud of many initiatives from his Casey tenure, but he especially points to two: chairing the business partnership to reform schools in Kentucky, a state with a large UPS operation. As co-founder and chairman of Partnership for Kentucky Schools, Nelson helped lift the state's lagging education system and raise academic achievement. Another project was persuading the Boys and Girls Clubs to invest in inner-cities. "We had some excess funds to donate, and no immediate plans for the money," he recalls. "And we wondered why there weren't any Boys and Girls Clubs in inner cities." Then-foundation director Martin Schwartz went to see the Boys and Girls Clubs and put that very question to them. "They didn't have a good answer for that," Nelson recalls. "And so Marty said, 'How would you like to open up a few?' " And thus, the Casey foundation funded the start of Boys and Girls Clubs in inner cities. Years later, as UPS CEO, Nelson stopped in to see the director of Boys and Girls Clubs of America, also headquartered in Atlanta. "I asked him, 'What is the thing you are most proud of,' Nelson recalled. "And he said, 'Our inner-city programs are just terrific.' I walked away feeling pretty good."
Today, another societal problem worries Nelson. "I'm very concerned about the huge percentage of people of color who have been incarcerated, especially young males, and what it will take to re-integrate these folks into society," he says. "Almost every organization that hires people screens those folks out." He sees a shift in attitudes when you sit down and talk with managers and entrepreneurs about the long-term implications of this approach. "More are willing to talk and think about interviewing and hiring these folks and giving them a chance at success," he says. "A lot of work needs to be done in this area."
Even though he recently stepped down from the Jim Casey and Annie E. Casey boards, Nelson remains very active with the Carter Center, serving on its board and formerly co-chairing former President Carter's $150 million endowment campaign. He also chaired the board of the CDC Foundation. He also is on the board and chairs the development campaign of the National Museum of Patriotism in Atlanta, a nonprofit that encourages people to be good citizens. He also serves on the board of Ball State University Foundation, where he is leading a $200 million development campaign.
Nelson says his wife quips that he has been retired from UPS for 11 years but still works six days a week. He says he is slowly paring back his commitments so he can travel a bit, play a few rounds of golf and spend time with his five grandchildren, who range from a preschooler to a young woman working at a law firm. "I'm trying to cut in half the things I'm involved in," says Nelson. "And slowly, I'm getting there."
