By Carol Cole-Frowe
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Two decades ago this month, the United States Postal System opened its 72-acre National Center for Employee Development east of 24th Avenue SE on SH 9 in Norman.
It's grown to about 500,000 square feet of office and training space in addition to a 445,000-square-foot housing facility -- and with close to 1,000 smoke-free guest rooms is the largest hotel in Oklahoma.
The NCED contains classrooms, labs, conferencing, housing, food, fitness and health facilities.
It was an expansion of the USPS training already being done in Norman at the USPS Technical Training Center, which opened in 1969.
NCED Manager Scott Morgan said the facility belongs to the general public.
"It brings a lot of people into town and employs a lot of people," Morgan said. The facility also has been a favorite for area banquets and receptions.
In fiscal year 2008, NCED provided 336 courses to 377,200 people, an increase of 18 percent over the previous year. It has an annual operating budget of more than $50 million.
There were more than 23,000 residential students trained between three days to six weeks at the Norman campus.
Another more than 353,000 completed courses in their home post offices through field-site delivery, distance learning from the NCED's four satellite channels internal to the USPS and e-learning courses.
That training enables the USPS to deliver more than 212 billion pieces of mail annually, which breaks down to 700 million pieces daily.
The NCED supports postal operations and helps process, transport and deliver the mail, Morgan said.
With 650 employees, the NCED is the fourth or fifth largest employer in Norman, behind the University of Oklahoma, Norman Regional Health System, City of Norman and Johnson Controls.
NCED employees are active in United Way, Habitat for Humanity, Oklahoma Blood Institute blood drives and other charitable efforts.
It's impact goes further, with NCED students often brining their own vehicles or renting cars to explore Oklahoma on their weekends while here, Morgan said.
Americans are familiar with the low-tech, friendly face of the United States Postal System, delivering the mail by planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, bicycles, hovercraft, subways. Even a mule train delivers to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
The mail goes to more than 300 million people at 148 homes, businesses and post office boxes in every state, city and town, plus Puerto Rico, Guam, the American Virgin Islands and American Samoa.
But the public face belies the behind-the-scenes, high-tech side of the USPS, which has consistently been on the leading edge of innovation. Training on that high-tech equipment is done at the NCED.
The training and equipment have evolved from mechanized equipment to automated and bar code scanning equipment. It takes less people to run the automated machines and fix them, too.
"Mechanics used to have to know how to fix everything," Morgan said. "The machinery now tells you what the problem is. ... A lot of it is push and pull technology."
In 1983, then Postmaster General William Bolger said in a speech in Norman that the new automation equipment would be the "most sophisticated we have ever seen in the Postal System. Likewise, the consequences of extended downtime due to equipment failure will be far more serious than in the past.
"The real hero in our future will be the man or woman with the technical skills to keep our machinery in good working order; the man or woman who can quickly diagnose and repair a critical piece of machinery and keep our operations moving on schedule," Bolger said.
The USPS continues its efforts to cut costs by being as green as possible. It owns the largest alternative fuel fleet in the country, with about 5 percent of its about 240,000 vehicles running on Compressed Natural Gas or electricity
Morgan said the public continues to get a great value on its mail delivery.
"Postage has gone up less than the rate of inflation," he said, comparing the increase in postage to the price of bread, which Morgan pointed out has risen from 10 cents a loaf to $2 to $3 for many kinds of loaves.
