Baird Promoted to Warsaw Postmaster
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Jordan Fouts-
Now 35, the former Warsaw delivery supervisor finds himself one of the younger postmasters in the area. He began serving as interim postmaster in May after the departure of Bill Belisle, and was officially appointed Aug. 10.
His first job with the USPS was a route in Seattle, Wash., in 1997, which he held for 10 years before transferring to Indiana.
“I thought when I was 19, ‘Well, hard is that – you just have to put this mail in a box. How hard can it be?’” he recalled this week.
Baird said he was pushed by his own supervisors to become a supervisor himself because he has a talent for remembering numbers. He now oversees a facility that receives as many as 1,900 packages daily, as well as 57 employees who strive to meet a 99.7 percent accuracy rating or better. Some of those carriers make 860 deliveries across nine miles in town, he said, or drive 150 miles along rural routes.
“Warsaw is an interesting office,” he said, noting it’s called an associate office and handles express deliveries for Winona Lake, Burket, North Webster and many other surrounding towns.
“We don’t curtail anything, we make sure it all gets out. There’s nothing left in the office at the end of the day,” he said. “If people really saw how many steps or how many miles a carrier goes, they might be inclined to move their mailbox down a few steps.”
Mailbox accessibility is a concern Baird highlighted, noting that messy yards and hard-to-reach mailboxes can add minutes to a route, at best, and lead to injury for a carrier at worst.
“It makes delivery a lot harder when you have to focus on obstacles rather than what’s in your hand,” he remarked.
He’s willing to help customers address their issues, from mailbox placement to delivery problems.
“I do anything to help customers get exactly what they’re looking for, something as small as a ZIP code lookup or tracking a package,” he said.
Baird is joined by several other new staff members, including Willie Johnson as delivery supervisor and Jill Hunter as retail supervisor, together putting a younger face on a changing business.
He said there have been a few bumps, but on the whole the new management team is young and eager.
“I started with a seasoned boss, there’s a lot of knowledge out there. We have a lot of seasoned managers who will not be here in a couple years, and we need younger people to step up,” Baird said. “I’m one of the youngest postmasters I see at the meetings of office heads... There have been retirements in all the offices around the area. A lot of guys out there are in their mid-50s; there aren’t too many managers in their mid-30s.”
Warsaw is striving to be one of the better offices in the area, a standard he sets for himself and his employees.
“I take pride in the fact that our delivery is very good, we’ve always been one of the top performing offices,” he said. “I have high expectations of my supervisors, and I think it gives them an edge.”[[In-content Ad]]
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Now 35, the former Warsaw delivery supervisor finds himself one of the younger postmasters in the area. He began serving as interim postmaster in May after the departure of Bill Belisle, and was officially appointed Aug. 10.
His first job with the USPS was a route in Seattle, Wash., in 1997, which he held for 10 years before transferring to Indiana.
“I thought when I was 19, ‘Well, hard is that – you just have to put this mail in a box. How hard can it be?’” he recalled this week.
Baird said he was pushed by his own supervisors to become a supervisor himself because he has a talent for remembering numbers. He now oversees a facility that receives as many as 1,900 packages daily, as well as 57 employees who strive to meet a 99.7 percent accuracy rating or better. Some of those carriers make 860 deliveries across nine miles in town, he said, or drive 150 miles along rural routes.
“Warsaw is an interesting office,” he said, noting it’s called an associate office and handles express deliveries for Winona Lake, Burket, North Webster and many other surrounding towns.
“We don’t curtail anything, we make sure it all gets out. There’s nothing left in the office at the end of the day,” he said. “If people really saw how many steps or how many miles a carrier goes, they might be inclined to move their mailbox down a few steps.”
Mailbox accessibility is a concern Baird highlighted, noting that messy yards and hard-to-reach mailboxes can add minutes to a route, at best, and lead to injury for a carrier at worst.
“It makes delivery a lot harder when you have to focus on obstacles rather than what’s in your hand,” he remarked.
He’s willing to help customers address their issues, from mailbox placement to delivery problems.
“I do anything to help customers get exactly what they’re looking for, something as small as a ZIP code lookup or tracking a package,” he said.
Baird is joined by several other new staff members, including Willie Johnson as delivery supervisor and Jill Hunter as retail supervisor, together putting a younger face on a changing business.
He said there have been a few bumps, but on the whole the new management team is young and eager.
“I started with a seasoned boss, there’s a lot of knowledge out there. We have a lot of seasoned managers who will not be here in a couple years, and we need younger people to step up,” Baird said. “I’m one of the youngest postmasters I see at the meetings of office heads... There have been retirements in all the offices around the area. A lot of guys out there are in their mid-50s; there aren’t too many managers in their mid-30s.”
Warsaw is striving to be one of the better offices in the area, a standard he sets for himself and his employees.
“I take pride in the fact that our delivery is very good, we’ve always been one of the top performing offices,” he said. “I have high expectations of my supervisors, and I think it gives them an edge.”[[In-content Ad]]
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