This week on Mailin' It, we’re joined by Gary Reblin, VP of Innovative Business Technology, and Jeffrey Tackes, Director of Digital Business Services, to talk about some of the ways the Postal Service is helping fight fraud and identity theft. We’ll learn about a service called In-Person Proofing, how it works, why it matters, and the impact it has made on other agencies and organizations.
In this episode, our hosts are joined by Gary Reblin, VP of Innovative Business Technology, and Jeffrey Tackes, Director of Digital Business Services, to talk about some of the ways the Postal Service is helping fight fraud and identity theft. We’ll discuss a service called In-Person Proofing, or IPP, how it works and why it matters for customers. We’ll also talk about how the Postal Service partners with other agencies and organizations to support identify verification, hiring efforts, and more.
Dale Parsan:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to Mailin’ It!, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm your co-host Dale Parsan.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
And I'm Yasmine Di Giulio. In this episode, we're gonna talk about some of the ways the Postal Service is helping fight fraud and identity theft.
Dale Parsan:
That's right, Yasmine. Front and center, the Postal Service’s fraud finding efforts is a service called In-Person Proofing, or IPP for short. Like the name implies, IPP is all about keeping the human element in the mix when you're validating someone's identity. In the case of IPP, we're talking mostly about people applying for certain federal online accounts and services, like passports.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
We'll get into the details of how IPP works and why it matters with our guests, for this episode. Gary Reblin, the Postal Service’s Vice President of Innovative Business Technology and Jeff Tackes, the Director of Digital Business Services. Gary, Jeff, welcome to Mailin’ It!.
Jeff & Gary:
Thank you. Thank you.
Dale Parsan:
Let's start all off by talking about your work here at the Postal Service. Gary, what does “innovative business technology” mean at the Postal Service and what's your role as VP?
Gary Reblin:
So “innovative business technology” is all about infusing technology into our business practices and our products. Uh, for example, we wanted to infuse digital into mail, so we create a product called Informed Delivery. Informed Delivery gives the customer a digital representation of their mail each day. So they're able to see the mail before they even get it. But one thing's important with that is we wanna make sure that the customer that's seeing it digitally is that person. So that's where In-Person Proofing comes. We need to in-person-proof the customer to make sure they are the person that is going to be able to see the mail-piece itself. So, In-Person Proofing is very important for our internal as well as external reasons.
Dale Parsan:
Wonderful. So why did you join the Postal Service and, and when was that?
Gary Reblin:
So, a long time ago, February in 1991, I joined the Postal Service at the time, because I was an engineer and the Postal Service was moving from mechanization to automation, being able to do things such as optical character reading, and that fascinated me as an engineer. So that was one of the reasons why I was so interested in getting involved with the Postal Service.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
That's really interesting, Dale. And it reminds me a lot of the conversation we had with Bob Dixon about Informed Delivery on an earlier episode of our podcast. We mentioned some of that identity verification. So, it's great to hear how it's all connected through different groups here at the Postal Service. Absolutely. And Jeff, what about you? What are digital business services and, and how did you come to the Postal Service?
Jeff Tackes:
Thanks for that question. So, like Gary said, we're all about enhancing products and services with digital capabilities. That's really what digital business services is all about. And it's also all about increasing revenue, finding new revenue streams on top of, you know, the core business that we're all in right now. And, really leveraging a lot of those assets that we have, like our national network of retail, 230,000 vehicles that we have on the road every day, all those assets. How do we build new business on top of those core assets?
Dale Parsan:
Great. Gary, now that you've given us a little bit of a preamble about IPP, let's dive a little bit deeper. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of In-Person Proofing? Just give us a little bit more of a breakdown.
Gary Reblin:
Yeah. In-Person Proofing started in the Postal Service way back in 2003, and it really is all about that “proof”. Is the person that's trying to get access to an account or, like Informed Delivery, see the images, something that only that person should see digitally? Are they the person on the other end of the wire that they claim that they are? So, In-Person Proofing is a great way that we can make sure it's that person, because we actually have them come into our unprecedented network of post offices, show an ID, which proves that they are who they say they are before we give them the access to an account, to the images or some other piece of information.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
And so can you give us some specific scenarios where IPP can help prevent fraud or identity theft?
Jeff Tackes:
Sure. I mean, I can take that one. A lot of the experiences we've had with identity theft over the last quite a few years, actually. And Gary mentioned back in 2003 is when we started In-Person Proofing. A lot of our data has been breached. A lot of it's out there. And so it's very easy for bad actors to represent us, if you're only talking about interaction on digital. The problem with digital interactions only is that it's very easy to scale those. So, the criminals can take those to a very infinitesimal level where they are breaching hundreds and thousands of people in a kind of a machine, really. And if you think of all the benefits and all, all the things that are distributed through our digital connections these days, some people are not very comfortable with transmitting that really personal information over the internet. That In-Person Proofing event, that's a personal face-to-face interaction, is really critical in defeating that scaled identity breach that have happened before. So, that's really important. Also, the fact that we're capturing that locally. So you're going to your local post office in order to do that identity proofing. That adds another layer of protection from like these offshore attacks where, you know, somebody in another country, that's a bad actor is just running these things through a mill of a fraud. So, there's really a couple of different ways that it's really effective for the Postal Service to be that at, In-Person Proofing component that really helps defeat fraud.
Dale Parsan:
I definitely resonate with that. I, I feel like even in this day and age where we're getting a lot of phone calls, on our cell phones and you just see, you know, block number or spam likely, and it could be your bank, it could be a local representative just trying to check in on a fraudulent charge or whatnot. But when they ask you for this personal information of, Hey, what's your date of birth? What's potentially your last four of your social, it's still in the back of my mind is, who am I talking to? So that idea of being able to go in person is, is not only, um, a benefit for the overall program and expediting information but also for, for me as, as somebody giving up that information, it makes me feel a lot better if I can interact with another human, in-person.
Jeff Tackes:
Right. And, and once that happens, you know, once you have somebody who has your information and they represent you in some way, and those attacks are getting so much more sophisticated, they look so much more real, more people are being fooled by them. Once that information is breached, then you almost need an in-person interaction to claw that back, to correct that event that supposedly happened on your record for maybe collecting a benefit or filing your taxes. You really need a backup plan. You really need a safety valve to be able to protect that. And we see the Postal Service being a really good option for those situations.
Gary Reblin:
Well, and that's not to mention, also, the fact that sometimes it's hard for somebody to In-Person Proof using online methods. I mean, they either don't have the smartphone that's necessary to do the In-Person Proofing or in some cases they don't have the credit history to really be able to In-Person Proof. That happened to my son. He was trying to sign-up for an account to just trade stocks and he didn't have enough credit history, so they weren't able to proof him. Having an In-Person Proofing option available allows people to be able to In-Person Proof themselves where they otherwise wouldn't have been able to get access to that digital information.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
So, it seems like there are major benefits to this In-Person Proofing service beyond just internal to the Postal Service for our own products, for our own hiring. Do we work with any other agencies or, or outside organizations to provide this service on their behalf?
Jeff Tackes:
We do. So the FBI, um, and this happened a while ago as we were hiring folks and those of us like Gary and I that have been around for a while, went to our local police station and got actually wet fingerprints that were then sent to the FBI. They do the background check and they provide that information back to our employer. That's a great process, but it wasn't as fast as it could be. Now, most of the industry is capturing digital fingerprints. So that's a much better way to do it. We found it was a better way to hire people more quickly and get those background checks completed much more quickly. And we said, okay, well, this is also a service that might be really valuable to the public. So we actually turned that service into something that's available at our retail, where you can come in, you can get that, it's called the FBI Identity History summary, commonly known as, like a rap sheet. You need it for things like coaching your kids team or anything, working with children, or maybe a visa, you know, you need it for a number of different aspects. It's really a wonderful option to be able to go into a post office and get that work done.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
So, is the process the same for every agency or for every request or are there kind of different levels of service that we offer that are part of In-Person Proofing?
Jeff Tackes:
I mean, there are differences. So the identity history summary check is, is really for voluntary positions. It's not for employment for the public. And the reason for that is because the inform is going back to the individual that comes in and gets that biometric capture done. Usually when it's through an employer, the employer is then getting that information back from the FBI to do that background check. So there are slight differences to the programs, but there are a number of programs that fall into those two big buckets. So right now we do the identity history summary check with the FBI. We're looking to expand to a couple other programs with them, and then we're looking to expand the sites that are available for being able to do that. We're now at 181 and over the next 24 months or so, we're going to add thousands of sites. Our real goal is to get to the level of access that passports have right now, which is 4,000 sites. And that gets us to like 90% of the population within 10 miles of one of those passport sites. So that's a really good network for us, right, to get to most of the population. And that's really what those agencies are interested in, is, can we make this convenient? Can we reduce the time tax of people who are trying to get these things done by being able to go somewhere locally?
Yasmine Di Giulio:
And there's already a post office there…
Dale Parsan:
Is that the main driver here? I mean, is that why the Postal Service is well-suited as the entity to offer these services?
Gary Reblin:
Well, I think there's two reasons the Postal Service is well-suited. First, we’re the most-trusted brand, most-trusted government agency. So we have that trust factor on our side. And then it's the location. Do you realize we are within five miles of 95% of the US population? There's no other agency that could provide In-Person Proofing to the entire United States that has that coverage associated with it.
Jeff Tackes:
And that coverage that Gary just mentioned. So I mentioned the 90% within 10 miles, that's for passport sites. It's only 4,000 sites. Think about our entire network. And we're at about 18,000 sites that you can do In-Person Proofing at. So for Informed Delivery, if I want to go in and just prove myself, or I wanna do hold mail, I can go in and do that in person at over 18,000 of our sites. As Gary mentioned, that is an incredible percentage of the us population. I think he said 95% within five miles. That's really getting to almost everywhere you need to be. That's what the agencies really do want. You're right. They want to be able to have a convenient location for people to go prove themselves so they can then get more services, more services digitally, and the agency can have confidence that's the individual that they're supposed to be working with.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
So I know we touched a little bit about, um, you know, identity theft and fraud. So the Postal Service is collecting all of this information, this biometric data. What does the Postal Service do to protect that data?
Jeff Tackes:
We do it in a couple of different ways. Obviously the data that we're collecting from our own customers within our own systems, very protected. And every system that we're working with right now are privacy act compliance systems. So that means when I go to the Postal Service or interact with the Postal Service in any way, the Postal Service has already told me they've already published how that system is gonna be used, what kind of information is gonna be collected in it, what are the permissible used, and what's the retention policy for that. That's protected. Sometimes for interactions we're having with other agencies, we may choose to just be a service provider to them. So let's say I'm going to the Social Security administration. I'm establishing my digital account for Social Security. That may be that Social Security collects my information, keeps it in their system of record. They pass some elements of that information over to me, over to the Postal Service as the service provider. We'll vet that identity, you know, the person comes in, brings in their identity document. We match it up against that. We pass it back to social security and they really hold the information. So it's sometimes a combination of the two. Of course, under the Privacy Act, what we all wanna do is minimize the amount of information that we're holding and the exposure of that information only to that individual or for those entities that they've approved can use it.
Dale Parsan:
So in talking about how the Postal Service always offered some level of passport services for as long as I can remember and understanding, we touched on what fingerprinting moving to digital fingerprinting and all of that kind of being housed underneath the services for In-Person Proofing. What are some other services that we currently offer or planning to offer that that kind of fall within that IPP realm?
Gary Reblin:
Well, I like to look at it in two different ways. The first is we have one level of In-Person Proofing where people just come in and this is where we can use our 18,000 locations. They come into a clerk, they show their ID, the person validates they are who they said they are. That's very simple. The other level is where we're getting the biometrics involved. And that's where we actually have stations where we're able to take their fingerprints. We also work with different agencies. So we're actually aligned with the GSA. The GSA gives access to all member organizations to get things like Jeff talked about PIV cards, which allows them to do employment with their government agency. All 140 member agencies have used us as proof-of-employment to give their contractor or their employee, the PIV card.
Jeff Tackes:
Yeah. And that personal identity verification card example is a really interesting one because as we all know, during COVID, a lot of federal buildings were closed, you know, nobody was coming into work. And so that's where a lot of that work was previously done, across these shared sites across the federal government. While you have something like COVID 19, where a lot of those sites just gets shut down, the Postal Service was able to step into that void and really support federal hiring for both employees and contractors. It was really a critical access point where there were very few options for those people prior to the Postal Service stepping into that arena. So a really good option, a really good example.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Do we have any partnerships with state, local or tribal governments or is it purely federal at this point?
Jeff Tackes:
Well, our authority does limit us to just federal relationships. There has been a lot of interest from state and local.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
I can imagine.
Jeff Tackes:
If you think about what happened during the COVID crisis for just unemployment benefits, for example, and just all the interactions that the IRS or the state unemployment agencies had to have with people in order to make sure that those benefits were going to the right person. Again, here's an example where fraud is a huge liability for us as tax payers you know, in general, no matter if we're employed or unemployed, those benefits are really important to us at a state level and at a federal level. I think there's a lot of interest there. Sometimes if the federal agency has a relationship with state and local, we might be able to work it that way. So we are looking at some options for how we might be able to support state and local through a federal partner.
Gary Reblin:
For example, the GSA, like we talked about earlier.
Dale Parsan:
Any plans to make this potentially available to entities outside of the government, local organizations, brands… ?
Jeff Tackes:
That's really what we're looking at now is, are there some options for how we might be able to do that? Cause really the end goal for us as a team is to figure out how we can get this to really the majority of the American population. You know, how do we make it good for the communities that we work in every day.
Gary Reblin:
Or, by contrast, new legislation could allow us to be able to do this and be able to expand into these areas.
Dale Parsan:
Yeah. I wanna shift a little bit, cuz we've been talking a lot about the value that this brings to other agencies to our customers. I wanna talk a little bit about how, how much change had to happen at our frontline post offices, brick and mortar locations to make this happen. I'm thinking of a lot of training that would have to go into something like IPP at these local branches. Could you talk to us a little bit about that?
Gary Reblin:
Well, to some degree, what we've talked to you today about is how we usually start things first for a postal reason. And then we expand into other federal governments. For example, I talked to you about In-Person Proofing and how we have people come into the post offices. If they weren't able to proof for Informed Delivery, we would send them an email with a barcode on it. They would come into the post office, we scan the barcode, they show us their ID. We're then able to sign’em up for Informed Delivery. That is the exact same process that we're now expanding into the federal government and getting paid for. So to some degree, yes, it does require training to set it up, but we were doing this for our reasons. So it doesn't take an additional layer of training as we bring on these other agencies, cuz we can use the same processes that we have already put in place.
Dale Parsan:
Right. So it sounds like we're, we're more so just working through our rollout plan on how we're expanding it throughout the country to, to more and more locations.
Jeff Tackes:
Right. And, and that, that scan of that barcode, that the individual brings in picks off a workflow. So that workflow can be very basic, much like something the clerk has been doing forever with just normal ID documents and being able to hand over, you know, certain and mail items across the counter. They were doing that already. It's just, now we actually have a code technology that kicks off a workflow that just steps the clerk through it. So it's actually, there's a little bit of training, but there's actually also a process that really helps the clerk go through the process.
Dale Parsan:
Yeah. And it sounds like it's not too far away from what they were already doing.
Jeff Tackes:
Very similar, very similar.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
What sort of feedback have you received from some of the agencies that partner with us on this?
Gary Reblin:
Oh, it's been extremely positive. One of the things is when we talked about the FBI cuz they were one of our first big opportunities. Well the FBI saw what we were doing with our employees and saw the benefit associated with getting the digital fingerprints as opposed to the wet fingerprints. And they actually approached us with the use case. It used to take them three weeks to process something, with a wet fingerprint. They can do it in the same day with a digital fingerprint. So it just cuts so much time out of the process, being able to use the Postal Service in these ways.
Dale Parsan:
This conversation reminds me a lot of when we were speaking with Chief Barksdale and the collaborative efforts between the Postal Service and other agencies for things like tackling crime and forensics lab work. It it's just another great example of how the Postal Service is able to position itself with the rest to the federal government to just bring overall unity in and just help.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
So, is this service available at every single post office? Like I can just walk into the post office, down the block from my house and get my fingerprints done?
Gary Reblin:
So as far as FBI and the fingerprinting, we're currently at 181 locations. Our plan is expanded to thousands. In fact, by 2024, we plan to be in over 4,000 locations.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Great. And so you mentioned earlier that this is a revenue generator for the Postal Service. Do I have to pay as a customer to have this service provided at the post office?
Jeff Tackes:
So it depends. It depends upon the service and the program. So for the FBI, for the fingerprinting, the individual who comes in actually pays us right at the retail for that transaction. Kind of like passports where you come in for a passport, you pay something if you want the picture, you know, the biometric picture as part of it, you pay a little bit more and then you pay for the shipping and the transaction. Some other programs that we're developing now, the agency would pay. So, when we're being a service provider, for example, for In-Person Proofing, the agency would then reimburse us for those transactions that we do. Because there's often times just like we do for Informed Delivery. There's a remote proofing attempt that happens before you ask the individual to come in, in-person. That's handling the lion’s share of the requests and then the ones that either choose to not go through that process or aren't able to go through that process, then come in for the In-Person Proofing. And that's actually a financial exchange between the agencies. So that's a component of the inner agency agreement where a financial transaction happens.
Dale Parsan:
So it's been a little while since I was fingerprinted and last time I did, it was wet fingerprinting. I do recall if there was some sort of cost associated. So I just wanna make sure to any listeners that there's an understanding that this isn't just a Postal Service-only transaction cost and, and they're not gonna be, you know, spending a whole lot of extra money by using this service that going through traditional means would also be a cost.
Jeff Tackes:
Yeah, I think the intent is for any sort of just In-Person Proofing transaction, where you're just proofing someone to have access to a digital account. The intent there is that the consumer would never pay. It's the more sophisticated biometric captures, like the fingerprinting where the consumer's gonna probably pay when they come do the transaction or an employer will pay. So like we don't charge the new employee for getting their background check and their fingerprints captured at the Postal Service.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Really they're purchasing that service from that government agency, and then the Postal Service is sort of the middle man. So when you are needing to get a background check from the FBI, that there's always a cost associated with that.
Jeff Tackes:
Yes, there's a small cost to the FBI and a small cost to the Postal Service for actually doing in the prince.
Dale Parsan:
So Gary, Jeff, a lot of great information today and one thing on my mind as we talk about rollout plans and plans for the next couple of years, how do you guys envision In-Person Proofing with the Postal Service as it's positioned with other federal agencies, in the future?
Gary Reblin:
Well, first of all, we'd like to be the point agency for any agency in the federal government that needs to do this authentication. We think we're uniquely poised to be able to do that. And we would like as well to expand to state and local governments and be able to offer the exact same thing to them. So we have a big vision, as far as this goes. We think that we are uniquely positioned to be able to do this for the federal, state and local governments.
Jeff Tackes:
And from the perspective of the citizen, which is really the individual we're all trying to serve. We wanna make this as convenient as possible. And actually the government's moving much more towards shared services, stuff that Gary talked about, the General Services Administration kind of being the pipeline that we can support all, however many, agencies that they support through our In-Person Proofing. We wanna be that same channel and we wanna make it more efficient for the government to provide some revenue for the Postal Service, for the services that we provide, but really make it better for the citizens and the people in our communities that we're delivering to and talking to every day.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Well, Gary, Jeff, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of mailing it. It was really interesting to hear about how the Postal Service has kind of built this In-Person Proofing service that really benefits the government, as well as the individual citizens.
Dale Parsan:
All right. It's time for Did You Know?. In this segment Yasmine and I uncover interesting facts about the Postal Service.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Today's segment explores some of the quirkier ways the Postal Service has gotten mail to recipients. Dale, did you know that the remnants of a pneumatic tube mail system still lie under the streets of New York City?
Dale Parsan:
You mean those tubes that we use at drive-thru’s for banks? I did not.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
So the very first pneumatic tube system was used in Philadelphia, beginning in 1893. Five other cities also used pneumatic tubes, including New York City. The Post Office department contracted with private companies to build and maintain the systems. In most places, the tubes were placed under city streets and it wasn't easy fitting them in around the existing sewage and gas pipes. In New York City, some of the tubes were placed in existing subway tunnels. Postal workers called Rocketeers, which is a great name by the way, would place mail inside canisters and then send the canisters into the system. Each canister could carry 500 letters and they traveled at 30 mph. To create suction or to push the canister through the tubes, the systems used electric motors to power blowers and air compressors. At its height, the pneumatic tube system in New York city covered 27 miles and connected 23 postal facilities. This network stretched up Manhattan's east and west side and even traveled over the Brooklyn Bridge to deliver into Brooklyn. Supposedly the tube system was even used to shoot sandwiches to downtown postal workers from a sub shop in the Bronx. Can you imagine?
Dale Parsan:
I'm not sure I'd want my lunch delivered in a tube going 30 mph. Though, I could see it being very convenient. Seriously though, the letter could theoretically be delivered in minutes instead of hours.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Well, theoretically, yes, but turns out the system had a fatal flaw. The whole point was to save time, but ultimately it just wasn't very efficient. For one thing, each canister could only hold nine pounds. So they needed a lot of them. And the canisters carried mainly letter-size mail, not newspapers, magazines, or packages. Another problem was that there was no way to route the canisters directly to individual locations. At every stop, every canister came out. Postal workers sorted through them, put aside those destined for their office and push the rest through to the next stop. So mail could shoot through the tubes faster than a male carrier could carry it, but some of that time was lost in sorting all the canisters. The system was also really expensive to operate. It was eventually killed for good in 1953, but you can still see a portion of the tubes in the old Chelsea station of the New York post office.
Dale Parsan:
What a fun example of unusual mail delivery. Now I've got another example of an unusual mode of mail delivery. You know that saying about neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night? Well, Northwestern Alaska has got to be one of the snowiest regions of the postal system. So, maybe it's not surprising, but did you know that reindeer once carried US mail in Alaska?
Yasmine Di Giulio:
I didn't know that, but you're right. I'm not surprised.
Dale Parsan:
From 1899 to the early 1910s, reindeer helped transport mail to more than a dozen post offices in Northwestern Alaska, including several located north of the Arctic Circle. During the winter of 1903 and 1904, reindeer carried mail from Barrow to Kotzebue, reportedly the longest and most dangerous mail route in the world.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Wait, I didn't know there were reindeer in Alaska.
Dale Parsan:
Well, there weren't until a guy named Sheldon Jackson imported them. Jackson was the General Agent of Education for Alaska. And in 1894, he proposed to the US Department of the Interior that reindeer could deliver mail better than dogsleds could. Reindeer could pull more weight and, unlike dogs, they could forage as they traveled, so mail carriers didn't need to pack food for them. Jackson imported reindeer from Siberia and Northern Scandinavia, and he also lured some professional herders to teach the locals how to work with the animals.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
I bet some of those routes were arduous.
Dale Parsan:
They sure were the first reindeer-powered mail route beginning in December of 1899, consisted of 360-day roundtrips from St. Michael to Kotzebue. Each round trip covered 1,240 miles. The route from Kotzebue to Barrow was even longer. And Jackson said, temperatures on the route ranged from 20 to 60 degrees below zero. Sometimes the carriers would have to shelter in snow huts for several days at a time before they could continue the journey.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Wow, that's tough. How long were reindeer used on mail routes in Alaska?
Dale Parsan:
Well, unfortunately not that long. While the reindeer were stronger than dogs and didn't need to carry their own food supply, the roundtrip of more than 1200 miles turned out to be too much for them. And there weren't any trained deer along the route to take over, whereas dog mushers could pick up fresh dogs at local villages along the way. So dogs sled took over again. While reindeer were used on some routes through at least 1912, dogs and horses did most of the mail delivery in the far north. Airplanes replaced animals later in the 1900s, but the descendants of those reindeer still live in Alaska.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Wow, Dale. I think we both found some really interesting and unusual ways to deliver mail.
Dale Parsan:
Tubes versus reindeer?
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Who do you think wins? (Reindeer.) Yeah, I think you're right. The reindeer is a pretty good visual.
Dale Parsan:
Well, that's it for this episode of Did You Know? So, Yasmine… Great conversation with Gary and Jeff. A lot of great information. It's about something that I had no knowledge about. What were some takeaways for you?
Yasmine Di Giulio:
Yeah, I think for me it was just really impressive hearing the scope of what we offer at our post offices across the country. I mean, you know, so many people live within five to 10 minutes of a post office. So it's really incredible that we're able to provide these services in such an incredible way. I actually do have to renew my passport, so I'm looking forward to checking out which post office near me offers that service, cuz it sounds very convenient then having to figure it all out myself and send it off.
Dale Parsan:
Absolutely.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
What about you, Dale? What stood out to you?
Dale Parsan:
For me, it's continuing to be fascinated by how the Postal Service can position itself with other federal agencies to add additional value to the American people. It just sounds like we have such a bright future ahead of us with being able to offer more and more services. I'm excited.
Yasmine Di Giulio:
That's great.
Dale Parsan:
All right. That wraps it up for us. Don't forget to check out our website for updates. You can also follow us along on Instagram: @USPostalService, Twitter: @USPS, and on Facebook. Subscribe to Mailin’ It! wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss the next episode.