Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has selected Albany District Manager Edward F. Phelan, Jr. to be the new vice president, Delivery and Post Office Operations for the United States Postal Service.

In his new position, Phelan assumes responsibility for all aspects of delivery within the postal network of more than 150 million households and businesses, as well as operations at approximately 32,000 Post Offices, stations and branches.

Phelan — who assumes his new duties Jan. 12 — will draw on experience he has developed during a 33-year career with the Postal Service.

Phelan began his career with the Postal Service in 1979 as a summer casual for the Syracuse (NY) Post Office where he would assume full time clerk duties and later transferred to a letter carrier.  He progressed through a series of supervisory and management positions including Manager of Syracuse's Solvay Branch.  He would ultimately assume the position of Postmaster for the city of Syracuse in 1993 with responsibilities for seven stations, eight finance units, a Business Mail Acceptance Unit and a Central Forwarding Service unit.

Phelan was appointed District Manager for Connecticut in January 2006 and guided that District through its consolidation of postal operations throughout Western Massachusetts to create the Connecticut Valley District in the spring of 2009.   In the summer of 2009, Phelan returned to serve as District Manager in the Albany District, which reaches more than 3.5 million postal customers served by 710 Post Offices in an area that stretches from the Massachusetts and Canadian borders west to Waterloo and south to Binghamton and the Southern Tier.

In addition to his leadership in the field, Phelan has worked at USPS Headquarters on special projects and the selection of Syracuse as a national Delivery Redesign Test Site. Phelan served with the National Advisory Committee for Postal Customer Councils.  He was a panelist at three National Postal Forums.

At home, Phelan has been extremely active as a member, past fire chief and past president of his volunteer fire company in Taunton. He also acted in leadership positions for related regional and state organizations in support of community-based emergency services.

He was previously elected President of the Central New York Federal Executive Association and Chairperson of the Central New York Combined Federal Campaign.  The new vice president earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration from Columbia College.

Mr. Phelan is married and the father of three children.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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