84th Grand Chapter Meeting Edition (Summer Issue)

Life Lessons From Kappa Alpha Psi Help Lead to Corporate Success

T he Kappa Alpha Psi motto of “Achievement in every field of human endeavor” serves as the guiding principle for dozens of Kappa men who happen to work at Memphis, TN – based FedEx Corporation – the multinational deliv- ery and logistics enterprise consistently ranked among the top 20 in the FORTUNE Most Admired Companies list. he four Kappa men highlighted here have a combined 85 years of experience at FedEx, and currently occupy key lead- ership roles in the company. All of them credit the values and lessons they learned through their involvement in Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. for helping them achieve their current level of professional success and instilling an abiding com- mitment to community service.

Sales, Strategic Planning, Marketing, now I’m working with robotics and advanced data technology. I’ve had the opportunity to have a very diverse set of responsibilities.” The official description of his current responsibilities includes working with other business units across the cor- poration to “solve complex problems, explore credible options for innovation and incremental improvements, imple- ment new solutions and drive opera- tional change that supports near term and strategic business goals.” What that actually means is that if FedEx Founder and Chairman Fred Smith has an idea about a new inno- vation and wants high-level analysis on

the economic feasibility of that idea, Comer’s team is the one he relies on. “We take the first look and determine what the topline opportunity is, so we can decide if the company should in- vest additional resources. It’s all cutting edge, doing things around Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, advanced analyt- ics and machine learning.” Comer earned his BBA degree in Ac- counting in 1982 from the University of Tennessee at Martin, and an MBA in Strategic Management from the University of Memphis in 1995. He credits the principles learned through the fraternity for laying the founda- tion for his personal and professional advancement.

Donald J. Comer (Zeta Kappa 1980)

Staff Vice President of Operations Analysis, FedEx Corporation

Years at FedEx: 30

I can’t tell you this is a job I would have envisioned for myself,” says Donald Comer, Staff Vice President of Operations Analysis. Over his nearly 30 years at FedEx, his career progres- sion involved taking on a wide variety of roles in several disciplines with increasing levels of responsibility. “I started in Finance, worked in IT,

124 |  84 TH GRAND CHAPTER MEETING ISSUE  THE JOURNAL

Publishing achievement for 105 years

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