United States Postal Service

Ezra Gregg

Justin Kai Zhu

Accelerated Career Entry program participant

Like most people, Justin Kai Zhu took for granted that the mail is delivered daily to his house—until he started working at the United States Postal Service. As a participant in the Accelerated Career Entry (ACE) program, Justin works in IT purchasing in the supply management department, and helps streamline processes to ensure your mail gets where it needs to be.

How did you first become interested in the Postal Service?
In college I was really interested in logistics and process improvement, and USPS is one of the largest logistical infrastructures in the world. Because of the size and scope of USPS, I knew there wasn’t any better place to work.

What is the best part about your job?
Negotiating with suppliers. Supply management basically buys anything that the Postal Service needs to use. We do procurements where there’s a need from an internal business customer. For and anything they need to purchase, whether it’s complex ERP systems to cleaning goods, we do the deals and the contracts. It’s really interesting to do the negotiations with suppliers for these goods, because of the high dollar value. It’s intense, but rewarding when you get the best value for your organization.

What’s the most fun project you’ve done since starting?
I can’t go into too much detail because I’m under nondisclosure, but I sourced a pretty complex system to help us track mail. This system will be implemented across the country. I got to see a lot of new cutting-edge technology, like advanced Optical Character Recognition, and embedded platforms.