For 45 years, Don McCarty Jr. has lived and breathed mail, first across the globe as a career postal professional with the Marine Corps, and most recently as the Director of Postal, Passport, and Printing Services at East Tennessee State University. As he approaches retirement, Don sat down with us to reflect on his journey, the innovations he championed, and the leadership philosophy that shaped a career unlike any other in the industry.
A career built on service and education
Don’s path into the mail center management community runs deeper than most. He spent the first 27 years of his career overseeing mail operations for the Marine Corps, holding key positions on the East Coast, West Coast, overseas, and at the highest levels of the Department of Defense. What he observed during that time stuck with him.
“Other services were losing their ability to have career postal people,” he recalls. “As of today, the Marine Corps is the only service that has people that can go in and do postal and mail for their entire career. The key was education, improvement, and always moving forward, not settling on what we’ve always done.”
When Don transitioned into higher education, he recognized the same patterns. “Schools were being outsourced and people weren’t keeping up with all the things they needed to do. It’s a changing environment all the time.” That recognition drove him to become an active voice at industry conferences through NACUMS and CUMSA, sharing what he had learned and learning from others in kind. “I found that it was probably one of the funnest parts of my job, being able to help other schools and other organizations find all these great things going on around the country.”
Making an immediate impact with technology
When Don arrived at ETSU, his CFO wasted no time laying out expectations. “He says, ‘Don, I’ve got three things for you to do. One: I want you to expand your hours for customer service. Two: we’ve got a lot of people from the other side of campus in medical field training and they don’t get off till five, so they can’t pick up their packages. And three: you’ve got these really small little doors and we’ve got all these Netflix discs coming through that don’t fit.'”
Don went to his first CUMSA conference shortly after and started asking around. “Is there a system out there where you can put a package into a locker, close the door, and an email goes out that tells someone to come pick it up using a pin number?” Nobody had an answer. A few months later, Kenny Greene from the College of Charleston called with a lead. Four months after that, Don had the first set of smart lockers installed at ETSU. At that same conference, a Pitney Bowes rep introduced him to a self-service kiosk for after-hours mailing.
“By addressing those first three needs in the first few months, it kind of set the tone,” Don says. “Ask me for an issue and I’ll fix it.” His advice for anyone trying to justify a technology investment today reflects that same philosophy: make an immediate impact, solve key issues quickly, and build credibility with leadership early.
The case for digital mail visibility
The decision to implement a digital mail solution came from a problem Don kept running into: departments calling to report missing letter mail with no way to prove it had been delivered.
“If there’s a package and it has a barcode, we can easily confirm it. But we’re talking mostly letter mail, magazines, flats. There was no conclusive way to provide that information.” When the Received Digital opportunity came along, Don saw the answer immediately.
“Now when they call me, I can immediately answer that question. But we don’t even get those calls anymore, because if it arrived, we scanned it.” Beyond accountability, the visibility has changed how recipients interact with their mail altogether. “It lets them know what’s coming in. They can sometimes even decide who should go get the mail.” And in cases where a piece isn’t worth the trip, staff can act on a quick email response rather than waiting on a pickup that may never come.
Improving inbound addressing accuracy from 27% to 94%
Don is quick to tell visiting university professionals that technology alone won’t solve everything. “If the mail is incorrect or incomplete, it causes us extra work,” he says. To tackle the problem at ETSU, he developed a three-step approach.
First, staff attach a form to any parcel with an incomplete or incorrect address, flagging exactly what’s wrong. Second, an in-house email system notifies the recipient that their mail is waiting at the window. Third, when they arrive, staff hand over the piece and explain why they had to come in. “We let them know that incorrect mail is processed last. It delays delivery one to two days, because incomplete mail, incorrect mail, is the last thing we’re going to process.” For repeat offenders, Don steps in personally. “They get to have a ten-minute conversation with me, and that usually really drives down repeat offenders.”
He also developed a dual-line address solution that satisfies both carrier requirements and USPS needs simultaneously. And for students who struggle to include their box number, he offers one more trick: “We tell them your middle name is now your box number. So Don 1003 McCarty. When that comes in, we know what that 1003 is.” Over 10% of ETSU students now ship that way by choice.
The result of the full three-step process: addressing accuracy climbed from 27% to 94%.
The shift from letters to packages
Don sees the transition from letter-focused to package-focused operations as the defining challenge for university mail centers today, and believes digital mail is central to making that shift work.
“The less work you can do on the letter mail, the quicker you can get the letter mail delivered, freeing you up to do the parcel mail,” he explains. With digital scanning, recipients can see what’s coming and decide whether it’s worth picking up. “If it’s something they really want or need, they come and get it. If it looks like a bill, well, we all know if you don’t pick up a bill, you don’t have to pay it.”
For letter mail, Don believes the solution is consistency. When students push back on the frequency, his response is simple. “The email reminders stop as soon as you pick up your mail. You won’t get any emails until the next piece comes in.”
Looking ahead: challenges and missed opportunities
When asked about the biggest challenge facing mail centers over the next decade, Don doesn’t point to technology itself but to the people using it.
“We all think younger people will embrace technology more. It’s really the mindset of the people.” He notes that the job has fundamentally changed in nature. “We used to be a 90% manual business. I think we’re about a 20% manual business, and the rest of the day you’re gonna spend your time working with some electronic piece of gear or software.” Mail centers that haven’t made that cultural shift, he says, face their greatest liability from within.
On the opportunity side, Don points to summer storage as the most underutilized idea in the industry. “Students drop off their packages, we give them the rules, and we charge them a set fee for each package for how long it’s here.” The program is especially valuable for international students and those traveling long distances for the summer, and the operational lift is minimal. “It’s only a two to three week process for the whole year, because you’ve got that week before school ends of people dropping off, and that week or two when school starts that you’re delivering. Otherwise it’s just sitting in storage earning us revenue. It is a win-win situation where students benefit by saving money and not having to worry about what to do with their items until next semester. The mail center wins because we help our customers, require minimal work and generates revenue for mail services department.”
It’s an innovation he never got fully off the ground at ETSU, and it remains his most fervent recommendation. “That one, to me, is a revenue generator that every single university could do.”
Building a culture of continuous improvement
Don’s approach to building a high-performing team starts on day one. Every new employee receives a detailed checklist covering all required duties. “As soon as you’ve put a check mark next to each of these areas, the sooner I can give you more responsibility and more authority and more decision making. Until then, I kind of put you on training wheels.” The motivation tends to be self-sustaining. “Everybody new doesn’t want to be on training wheels.”
Once the basics are checked off, Don steps back and pushes his staff to own their decisions. “If you ever make a mistake, there’s no mistake you make I can’t fix, unless you don’t tell me about it.” That philosophy traces directly back to his Marine Corps days. “This is your area. Put your name on this section. You’re responsible for it. If it’s not perfect, it’s on you. If it’s perfect, it’s on you.”
His broader view on leadership is equally direct. “If you can empower your people with the right procedures and guidance and then give them the ability to think on their own and come up with improvements, you are going to achieve way more than any one person could ever do by themselves.”
Greatest achievement
Ask Don what he’s most proud of and the answer comes quickly: the smart lockers.
“Not only did it allow me to be more efficient and give the students 24/7 access to all their mail, it also allowed me to shift people to start making really good money in the print area, really good money in the passport and photo.” That revenue growth translated directly into better outcomes for his team. “We got several across-the-board pay raises for the staff. We have a very low turnover.”
The lockers created a flywheel Don is proud to leave behind. “The smart mail and parcel lockers allowed us to expand and make more money to buy more lockers, which allowed us to expand and make more money.”
What's next
Retirement won’t keep Don far from the industry. He plans to move into consulting, visiting universities and offering the kind of direct, experience-backed guidance he’s given informally for years at conferences and in conversations with peers.
“My goal is to reach out to universities to be able to help them in any way I can,” he says. “I’m coming in there as a true person that’s gonna do the best for the school, give them the best advice, and try to point them in the right direction to the best services.”
For whoever steps into his role at ETSU, his parting advice is characteristically grounded. “Look at what we’re doing here. Talk to the people and ask them what they like about this place, what’s the main things they like about working here, why do they keep coming back.” And above all: “Always strive to make sure it’s perfect. Never rest on ‘it was almost perfect.’ If we never achieve it, it’s okay.”
After 45 years, Don McCarty has left a remarkable mark on university mail services, and it’s clear the industry will continue to feel his influence for years to come.
