Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 2, 1993 TAG: 9307020219
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
The agency was facing a $2 billion deficit in 1993, he said, but restructured itself to improve its performance and get its rates under control.
He spoke to business people at a Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday at Pulaski Community Hospital.
"We are looking for ways to earn more of your business," he said. "Accuracy, dependability and reliability are what you are purchasing from us. If we don't deliver, we know you'll find somebody else who will."
Clark, a Virginia Tech graduate who began his postal career as a letter carrier in McLean in 1983, became postmaster in Pulaski in February.
Since then, he said, the Pulaski post office has increased its window hours. The windows stay open until 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, an extra 30 minutes from their previous 5 p.m. closing time, and an extra hour on Saturday - from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. instead of 10 a.m. to noon.
Despite reduced staffing, two window clerks are available at all times so customers will not have to wait in line, he said.
"We have a 9 a.m. commitment time to get our box mail up and, since I've been here, we've reached that goal every day," Clark said.
A new dispatch at 4:15 p.m. gets mail earlier to the processing center at Roanoke, and Clark hoped businesses would take advantage of the extra truck because it was put on at an annual cost of $58,000.
It will be worth it if it provides more mail out of Pulaski for processing earlier in the day so the sorting machinery can be used more efficiently, he said. The later trucks hit Roanoke about 7:30 p.m. when everything else is coming in and the machines are overloaded.
The advantage to business, he said, is that "that gets your mail in the stream faster."
Clark said the post office might even pick up some business mail, if there is enough to justify it.
"If you generate enough volume for me to come out here and get it, I'll do it," he said.
There are a number of services the post office can provide businesses, he said. For example, it can put postal bar codes on return envelopes for businesses that provide them in billing.
Clark said the post office also needs help from businesses in getting addresses correct. If a business gets mail at a post office box but has its street address on the envelope instead of the box number, it will take an extra day to deliver it.
The machinery reads addresses from the bottom up, he said, starting with the town or city, state and ZIP code line and then the line immediately above that. "You can have it with both [street and box] addresses on there, but remember, a line above the bottom is where your mail's going to go."
Businesses can take that into account when re-ordering stationery, he suggested.
"We've been empowered at a local level to make more decisions," Clark said. "I don't want you to think of the Postal Service as a government agency. I want you to think of the Postal Service as a business that tries to earn your trust."
He urged business people wanting further information to contact him at the Pulaski Post Office at 109 N. Washington Ave. or call him at 980-4500.
by CNB