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After a successful career in publishing, Superletter founder, Chris Schultheiss, opted to take an early retirement and pursue his dream of owning and operating his own yacht. In 1996 he spent the winter aboard Full Circle cruising the Caribbean while (trying) to maintain contact with family, home and businesses needs in the US and Canada. Although email was available, there were many instances where ‘real’ mail was required but Chris quickly discovered that mail delivery at best could take two to three weeks to for delivery. Several times he flew back to the US and discovered that he had beaten his own mail home by a wide margin.
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This is when his idea was first formulated to combine the best features of Web-based electronic mail integrating PCs, the Internet, and ‘Last Mile’ delivery specialists creating a fast economical mail delivery service around the globe. (He later discovered a similar system had been envisioned by others and was called “Hybrid Mail”.)
Over the next three years, Chris assembled a team to create the software and to market and sell the system to users. But, despite traveling far and wide (from Denver, Colorado to Hamburg, Germany to Beijing, China) attending Postal and Technology Expositions and Seminars, meeting with Postal Officials and eliciting the assistance of highly experienced postal and courier executives he was never actually able to launch the global network of Hybrid Mail providers originally envisioned.
None the less he and his tight-knit team persevered, cut back staff and overhead redirecting their efforts by identifying potential niche markets that did not require a global network to implement. The software and the server were redesigned enabling custom applications of the service specifically designed for those niche markets. The SuperLetter team continued to promote the concept to anyone who would listen.
In the summer of 2000, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Davis, under the direction of Brigadier Cash, Chief Executive of the British Post Office contacted SuperLetter to enquire about our capabilities to replace the existing Royal Mail "Relay One" service which was due to be withdrawn by Christmas that year. The challenge was to modify the existing "civilian" SuperLetter System to military and civilian requirements. By the time an agreement was reached, the SuperLetter team had only 3 months to deploy the service. The e-Bluey service was activated the week before Christmas of 2000 and rapidly evolved and actually was awarded 1st Place for the 2002 World Mail Award in e-messaging! ! (To learn more about the e-Bluey service, please go to the "How It Works" Tab.) Most recently, November 2005, the e-Bluey service received a 1st Place UK Mail Award in the Technology category.
Despite continued research and development and sales and marketing initiatives, it was 2004 before SuperLetter gained its next major client when the United States Marine Corps contracted SuperLetter to create the MotoMail service to provide a Hybrid Mail system for Marines deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The MotoMail service is drawing wide acclaim and has already tripled its volume projections.
Currently, SuperLetter has a 1/2 dozen initiatives and applications in development and expects to begin trials in the first quarter of 2006.
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