Bike, car messengers persevere

By Keith Coffman
Denver Post, January 30, 1999

With the widespread use of fax machines, e-mail and other online servicesin offices, it might seem as though courier services were obsolete.

Not so. In fact, courier services in the Denver area - including thosefolks you see tearing around Downtown on their bicycles with packages -are in abundance. And industry representatives say they expect to be operatingwell into the next millennium.

But they have had to modify and diversify their range of services.

"People predicted the demise of couriers when the fax machine came alongin the 1980s, but people still more readily accept an original, hand-delivereddocument," said Bob DeCaprio, executive director of the Messenger CourierAssociation of America, a 300-member trade association based in Washington,D.C.

And a quick glance at Yellow Pages listings ? shows more than 100 companiesoffering delivery services along the Front Range.

"It's so competitive and the level of expectation so high, that if youdrop the ball, there are five companies waiting in the wings to take overthe account," said Chris Grealish, owner of Denver-Boulder Couriers, adelivery service that features both car and bicycle messengers.

While his business dropped slightly with the electronic advances, Grealishsaid his company, which he formed in 1988, picked up the slack by offeringother services such as prescription deliveries. Also, he said, many companiesstill find it more economical to hire a bicycle messenger to deliver alarge document Downtown than to use an office worker's time faxing thepaperwork.

"E-mails and faxes have redefined the industry, but it still seems viable,"Grealish said.

He said his company is growing by 20 percent annually, and it did $1million in sales for fiscal 1998.

But Grealish said he is concerned about possible legislation that mightallow law firms to file motions online, rather than producing the original,paper-generated documentation that is now required by courts. Law offices,he said, are a big part of his business.

DeCaprio said advances in technology have boosted the industry's productivityin many areas by improving communication and logistics with on-vehiclecomputer maps, electronic product and service information, and route scheduling.

 Rick Ressler, general manager of one of Denver's largest courierservices, Express Messenger
Systems Inc., said there are plenty of items that cannot be transmittedelectronically. The need to deliver laboratory specimens, X-rays, cashbank deposits and oversized items such as building blueprints will nevergo away, he said. "We'll move just about anything as long as it's safe,"Ressler
said.

Express Messenger is a subsidiary of Citicorp and Air Canada. The companyemploys 115 drivers in Colorado and had $6 million in revenue last year,he said.

A greater concern for Ressler than the threat of becoming a dinosaurdue to technology is the day-to-day logistics of getting couriers throughtraffic gridlock in the Denver metro area.

"The slowing down of traffic means hiring more drivers to make our timeddeliveries," Ressler said.

For example, Ressler said, the recent Stock Show parade and the governor'sinauguration forced an on-the-fly rerouting of his couriers to get aroundDowntown Denver.

DeCaprio said it's hard to put an exact figure on the number of couriercompanies in the country, be cause it's difficult to define what constitutesa courier service.

"It's tough to guess because it can range from one guy in a small townwith one car and a walkie-talkie to taxicabs who make deliveries," he said.

DeCaprio said that factoring out package delivery companies like FederalExpress and United Parcel Service, there are probably about 5,000 messengercompanies nationwide, and his association estimates the industry generatesabout $3 billion annually.