UPS’s Stoffel to retire after 35 years

Robert “Bob” Stoffel – a part-time truck loader who rose to UPS’s highest ranks – announced his retirement after 35 years with the company. A member of UPS’s Management Committee since 2004, Stoffel currently serves as the senior vice president for supply chain, strategy, engineering and sustainability.

His retirement takes effect on 1 January 2011, with Stoffel’s responsibilities for supply chain, engineering and sustainability being assumed by chief operating officer David Abney.

His responsibilities in the strategy arena have been assigned to Alan Gershenhorn, the senior vice president for worldwide sales and marketing.

“Bob Stoffel has served this company with distinction for his entire working career and we will miss his counsel and interaction in the day-to-day management of UPS,” said chairman and CEO Scott Davis. “Bob has been a key leader in this company’s strategy development and transformation from a domestic package delivery company to a global logistics leader.

“He also has championed efforts to lessen UPS’s environmental impact and to create a more sustainable future for the company, its customers and the communities that we serve,” Davis continued. “UPS’s future is bright because of Bob Stoffel’s contributions.”

Stoffel joined UPS in 1975 in metro Chicago as a part-time loader/unloader while earning a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Illinois-Chicago. He became a part-time supervisor a year later and by 1986, had been promoted to the post of district industrial engineering manager in the North Florida District. Stoffel subsequently rose through a series of jobs with increasing responsibility before being elevated in 1995 to coordinator of corporate industrial engineering activities.

That position, in turn, led to Stoffel taking over leadership of UPS’s Quality function and then working as UPS’s transportation process manager as well as time spent in the corporate research and development and marketing functions. It was in 2000, one year after UPS went public, that Stoffel’s career broadly shifted to helping the company integrate the many new companies it was acquiring to build logistics capabilities around the globe.

When he was promoted to the Management Committee in 2004, Stoffel assumed command of what at the time was known as the Supply Chain Group after heading one of the group’s four units – UPS Supply Chain Solutions. He had overseen the integration of 16 acquired companies into UPS Supply Chain Solutions and then led the unit to profitability.

“It’s easy sometimes to forget how far we’ve come and how fast we started moving after our strategic shift beyond package delivery,” Davis added. “But UPS is a very different company today because of Bob’s commitment and those of his colleagues to expanding that side of our business.”

During his tenure on the Management Committee, Stoffel’s responsibilities expanded to encompass oversight of the Corporate Strategy, UPS Capital and Engineering Departments and most recently, to provide a single point of coordinated leadership for UPS’s myriad sustainability and environmental programmes.