The 66th Postmaster General of the United States, age 86, died on Wednesday, April 25, 2018. He was born on August 25, 1931 in San Diego, California.

From birth to death Paul was an achiever. Finding work as early as the age of 10, Paul learned that he liked to work hard. He applied his persistence to running and became an All-American in Track at the University of Wyoming where he met his wife Sue and graduated with undergraduate and graduate degrees in Political Science.

He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army and a Major in the Army Reserves. His working career was primarily in Washington, DC as a lobbyist and Postal Executive. He was instrumental in bringing together the final agreements to pass federal laws to provide equal education for each child, to insure technology was a part of each classroom, to set aside wilderness areas for public use and to change the US Post Office into the independent federal agency renamed to the United States Postal Service.

He served as a senior executive with the USPS for 17 years, instituting professional management practices and independent financial solvency for the organization.

After retirement Paul built and sold two companies which brought hybrid mail innovations to the postal industry. Despite a robust public life, Paul and his wife led a very private personal life and Paul was particularly proud of their 63 year marriage. Together they travelled the world, but found quiet enjoyment at their home in McLean, VA.

Paul was especially close with each of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren; plus many nieces and nephews. He leaves behind four sons and spouses – Joseph and Shirley of Cary, NC, Robert and Leslie of DaCun, Taiwan, Thom and Mary of Salisbury, MD, and Mark and Liza Mae of New York City, NY; two grandchildren and spouses – JP of Cary, NC and David and Laurel of New Bern, NC, and three great-grandchildren – Kai, Gideon, and Sydney. Paul will be interred at Arlington Cemetery at a time determined by the cemetery and a Celebration of Life service will follow the interment.

Source: PAUL CARLIN Obituary – Washington, DC | The Washington Post

Former Postmaster Says He Was Fired For Resisting Pressure –Paul N. Carlin believes he was fired as postmaster general because he would not bow to pressure from two of his bosses to take steps to help a Dallas-area firm get a big contract to build mail sorters, he said in an affidavit made public Wednesday.

Former postmaster general Paul N. Carlin has sued executives of a Texas communications company, a Washington public relations firm and a local management placement company, saying they caused his ouster in 1986 after he thwarted attempts to steer a lucrative Postal Service contract to the Texas firm (note: Carlin remained a postal executive at lesser pay).

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court here, marks the latest chapter in a three-year legal battle that includes an investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office, two other civil lawsuits and five criminal indictments. In the suit, Carlin asserts that executives of Texas-based Recognition Equipment Inc. and two Washington companies — Gnau & Associates Inc. and MSL International Consultants Ltd. — collaborated with a member of the Postal Service’s Board of Governors to cause his firing after he refused to cooperate in a contract payoff scheme.

Named as personal defendants are William G. Moore Jr. and Robert W. Reedy, both executives with REI now on leave from the company, and Albert V. Casey, the former chief executive officer of American Airlines, who was asked to replace Carlin in 1986. Also named as defendants were Peter E. Voss, a former member of the Postal Service Board of Governors, John R. Gnau and two former executives with Gnau’s public relations firm, William A. Spartin and Michael B. Marcus. Voss and Gnau are now serving federal prison terms on bribery and other convictions in connection with their role in the contract scheme. Marcus served a six-month term on a bribery conviction and was released.

Reedy and Moore were indicted by a federal grand jury here last October on charges of mail and wire fraud from the same investigation. They are scheduled to go to trial in September. None of the defendants could be reached directly for comment, but an attorney for Moore, New York lawyer Charles A. Stillman, called the suit ridiculous, noting that Carlin had filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Postal Service Board of Governors. That suit was dismissed in July 1986 by U.S. District Judge John H. Pratt, who ruled that federal courts lacked the authority to review the case.

Carlin was fired by the Postal Service’s Board of Governors in January 1986 after only 12 months in office amid accusations that he was running the Postal Service inefficiently. Later, however, a federal investigation into contract procurement at the Postal Service revealed a scheme to steer a $162 million optical scanning equipment contract to REI, allegedly with the help of all the defendants in Carlin’s lawsuit except Casey.

The lawsuit alleges that Casey was appointed at the behest of the defendants and that his appointment was intended to help REI get the contract. REI executives have denied any impropriety. The case also has spawned another civil lawsuit, this one filed by attorneys for former senior assistant postmaster general James V. Jellison, who said that he was demoted because he too resisted efforts to steer the contract to REI. Rather than accept the demotion, Jellison quit. His suit is pending in federal court here.