Second FedEx Ground Station Opens in Oklahoma City
The Oklahoman
FedEx Corp. has operated one 180,000-square-foot shipping station in Oklahoma City since 2006, and on Oct. 16 it celebrated the grand opening of a 270,000-square-foot shipping facility in north Oklahoma City to more than double its warehouse space in the area.
FedEx Corp. is No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 8 on the TT Top 50 Logistics Companies in North America.
Package volume has more than doubled in the past decade, according to the company, and Oklahoma City was in need of a second FedEx Ground Station. FedEx opened the facility at 14748 N. Lincoln a few weeks ago to complement the existing station at 2701 SW 18.
“A lot of it is e-commerce,” Oklahoma City FedEx Senior Manager Curtis Wells said. “We build them to accommodate outbound volume of growing businesses in the area, and it reflects well on the local economy.”
Wells has seen the need for shipping capacity grow considerably during his time in Oklahoma City.
“I moved here in 2006, and we had a three-van assembly line in a space off Reno,” Wells said. “Our growth curve goes from 2006 to 2012, when we built the first station, and then it took only six more years to need another.”
The building was opened for use a few weeks ago, but the company celebrated its opening Oct. 16. Nearly 250 employees will work at the facility when all jobs are filled, and the station can process about 12,000 packages per hour.
We’re continuing to hire for our peak season. They are designed to be seasonal jobs, but there is some growth every January and we are able to keep a few.
Oklahoma City FedEx Senior Manager Curtis Wells
“You’ll see the sorts really going in the morning time, and then once the vans come back with the pickups tonight, we’ll fire up the system and we’ll be sorting packages,” District Managing Director Chad Allen said.
Packages are sorted in a FedEx Ground Station whether they are being shipped from, or delivered to, a consumer in the area.
“When a package is picked up by the delivery driver it comes back to a station like this,” Allen said. “It’s sorted to its next destination — oftentimes it goes to a hub — and from there it transitions to delivery to another station. It goes station, hub, station.”
Improving overall capacity in the area allows for one-day shipping throughout much of Oklahoma from the stations in Oklahoma City.
FedEx is hiring seasonal employees to provide that speed of service through the holidays,
“We’re continuing to hire for our peak season,” Wells said. “They are designed to be seasonal jobs, but there is some growth every January and we are able to keep a few.”
Job seekers in the area can find more information on the FedEx website. For Allen, an entry-level position unloading boxes led to a 23-year career with FedEx and now a management position over a multistate region.
“That’s a great thing about this company, is the ability to move up,” Allen said. “You can start out moving boxes and end up managing many stations.”
