Manager maintenance Patrick W. Cremer (left), and plant manager Duane Lariviere watch images of package labels get processed by the automatic sorter’s computer. (Photo by Jeff Hanouille)
SPRINGFIELD – It may not be the North Pole and there aren’t any of Santa’s elves building toys, but the USPS Springfield Network Distribution Center is just as busy as Jolly Old Saint Nick and his helpers this time of year.
A 1,125,000 square foot campus on Fiberloid Street, the Springfield Network Distribution Center is New England’s largest postal package processing facility. It serves as the sorting center for all packages that originate or are destined to western Massachusetts, Hartford and southern Connecticut, and some packages from all of New England and parts of New York.
Mail handler Joyce Jessup organizes packages on a conveyer belt to be automatically sorted. (Photo by Jeff Hanouille)
The facility normally processes about 250,000 packages per night, but during this holiday season, those figures almost double. Almost a half million packages were processed this past Monday, which is traditionally the busiest day of the year for the distribution center.
“For mail originating in this area and going out to the world, this is by far our heaviest day of the year,” said Duane Lariviere, plant manager, during a tour of the facility on Monday. “We will process about a half million packages, several days in a row, and we will inbound and dispatch about 600 tractor trailers, so it’s quite an operation.”
Lariviere said the facility employs 1,300 postal employees and hires an additional 550 temporary people for the Christmas crunch.
“All the employees do a great job,” Lariviere said. “It’s really them that makes us successful. They spend more time here than they do at home, but they make the best of it. This week especially, it’s all hands on deck. Everyone does a good job, and they always step up this time of year.”
Laura Moodi, a mail handler, helps empty a container of packages on the conveyer belt. (Photo by Jeff Hanouille)
The facility has state-of-the-art automated sorters and belts that help the plant process 9,000 to 10,000 packages an hour.
Additionally, a neighboring plant with an extra 200 employees helps manually process the packages.
Lariviere said the post office takes pride in being able to deliver packages during the holidays because those packages can mean a lot to different people.
DSC0010: One by one, packages go through a machine that reads labels and automatically sorts the packages depending on their destination. The machine Dozens of packages in a container wait to be emptied onto a conveyer belt where they will go for processing. (Photo by Jeff Hanouille)
“The greatest thing is when we get a care package for someone that is in the military and deployed overseas,” Lariviere said. “That mail moment can be the most important and most looked forward to thing in their lives when they’re over there, so serving the people that are in the service gives us great pride.”
For last-minute shoppers or those who have been procrastinating, the post office guarantees delivery by Christmas for packages that are mailed out on Saturday, Dec. 20 by priority mail.
Post office locations that will be open from 1-5 p.m. on Sunday include:
• Amherst at 145 University Drive
• Pittsfield at 212 Fenn St.
• East Longmeadow at 119 Industrial Drive
• Attleboro at 901 Pleasant St.
• Easthampton at 191 Northampon St.
For more information, go to usps.com.
