The next leader of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will be David Steiner, the 12-year president and CEO of garbage hauling and recycling service provider Waste Management and a current board member at FedEx Corp.
Steiner was picked by the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors to succeed the current Acting Postmaster General Doug Tulino—who will now return to his permanent position as Deputy Postmaster General and Chief Human Resources Officer—who has held the seat since the resignation in March of former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
Steiner is expected to formally join USPS in July, following an ethics and security clearance vetting processes. Before leading Waste Management, Steiner held a succession of senior management roles at the company, and was previously a partner at the law firm Phelps Dunbar. In addition to his board seat at FedEx, he is also a director at the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University, construction material manufacturer Vulcan Materials, and recycling automation provider AMP.
In his role as the nation’s 76th Postmaster General, Steiner steps into an organization that is in the middle of a 10-year reorganization plan launched by DeJoy in an effort to return it to profitability. However, that plan still has a ways to go; also Friday, the agency announced its that its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 totaled a net loss for the quarter of $3.3 billion, compared to a net loss of $1.5 billion for the same quarter last year.
In addition, some interest groups and stakeholders suggest that USPS should not seek to become profitable at all, but rather should continue to serve in its historical role as a semi-federal agency with a primary mission to provide services like universal delivery of mail, pharmaceuticals, election ballots, and other items.
In one statement, Steiner was urged to “strengthen the institution’s mission of delivering reliable, affordable mail services to every American, every day,” according to Keep Us Posted, a nonprofit advocacy group of consumers, nonprofits, newspapers, greeting card publishers, magazines, catalogs, forestry and recycling interests, and small businesses.
“This is a pivotal moment for the Postal Service, as self-inflicted service failures, ever escalating costs and volume-killing rate increases by Louis DeJoy under the Delivering for America plan have pushed USPS to the brink of failure,” Kevin Yoder, Keep US Posted executive director and former Republican congressman from Kansas, said in a release. “As a key connector of people, communities, and businesses, the U.S. Postal Service remains an essential part of the nation’s economic and civic infrastructure. Keep US Posted looks forward to working collaboratively with Steiner to ensure that postal policy prioritizes long-term sustainability, protects affordable access to mail, and preserves the vital role that mail plays in our democracy and daily lives.”
