Ex-FedEx exec an entrepreneur

John Tucker Morse’s business acumen flowered when he took a chance and joined the company that would eventually grow to become FedEx.

As the first general counsel for Federal Express, he was one of 10 employees working under company founder Fred Smith at what was then Little Rock Municipal Airport. It was 1972.

A year later, Smith moved the company to Memphis, and Morse went with it. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

By the time, Morse “retired” from Federal Express in 1981 as senior vice president and returned to Little Rock, he had helped take the company public. By that time, it had 40,000 employees.

In 2019, the air package delivery company now known as FedEx had revenue of $69.2 billion, employed 500,000 people and provided service in more than 220 countries.

“If we had kept that industry, we’d be looking good,” Morse once said, the “we” being his hometown.

Morse’s cousin, Bobby Tucker — a Stephens Inc. executive — said Morse’s drive to succeed in business was on display when they were 7 years old and selling cold drinks from a stand at the corner of Country Club Road and Spruce Street in the Pulaski Heights neighborhood.

When it came time to divide the day’s proceeds, Morse wanted to deduct a percentage of the take, over and above his share, for renting the corner, his grandparents’ front yard.

“He didn’t get his way that time,” Tucker recalled with a chuckle.

Morse got his way more often than not because of that drive, whether it was in business or dealing with the Parkinson’s disease that afflicted him for the last 20 years of his life.

Morse who was the son of a former Little Rock mayor, died Thursday of complications from a brain injury that was the result of a recent fall, according to the family. He would have turned 76 on Sunday.

He was born in Aug. 2, 1944, the son Bryon “Bynie” R. Morse, who in addition to serving as Little Rock mayor in 1963-64 was a founder of one of Arkansas’ largest real estate firms, Rector Phillips Morse Inc.

The younger Morse obtained an undergraduate degree in history from Washington and Lee University and a law degree from Hastings College of the Law at the University of California in San Francisco. He spent 10 months working as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Smith Henley before Smith tapped him to join Federal Express.

“He saw something in Fred Smith,” Tucker recalled. “Tuck [as friends called him] felt that with Fred flying the plane, he would succeed. He was young and single. He had the opportunity to take a chance.”

Morse didn’t slow down when he returned to Little Rock, taking up residence in the Edgehill neighborhood.

“At heart, he was an entrepreneur,” said his sister, Melinda Laurens. Federal Express had “become too big of a company.”

Among his ambitions was remaking downtown Little Rock.

Morse focused on remaking a section of Main Street between Capitol Avenue and Sixth Street that included the redevelopment of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and the construction of the Main Street Mall in the mid-1980s. The Main Street Mall eventually fizzled.

“He had a strong desire to redevelop downtown,” son Richard Morse said. “He was ahead of his time.”

Morse also dabbled in an airline, as well as restaurants, and became an ardent supporter of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock basketball team under then-Coach Mike Newell.

Morse eventually moved to Charleston, S.C., to be closer to family. There, he became involved in several technology, real estate, mutual fund, financial and other services companies.

Morse returned to Little Rock in June while his wife, Catherine, underwent medical treatment at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Morse and Tucker went to lunch almost daily, a reflection of that drive Tucker saw as a 7-year-old.

“He had a strong determination to get out and go on in spite of his infirmities and his Parkinson’s,” Tucker said. “He wanted to go. He didn’t want to miss anything. I’m thankful for the time we had together.”