Signed, sealed, delivered

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can keep the Yale Mail Service team from delivering first-class and inter-office mail and packages directly to campus buildings. This includes all incoming and outgoing mail for staff and faculty in departments with a P.O. Box service.

Yale Mail’s central hub, now located at West Campus, receives, sorts, and delivers approximately 700,000 pieces of mail and parcels annually, along with a satellite location at the School of Medicine.

The team of nine is led by Manager Joe Camporeale. He joined Yale in 2022 after a long career with the United States Postal Service (USPS). Camporeale brought his extensive operations experience to Yale, creating efficiencies through training, community engagement, and software upgrades.

Student mail is handled by USPS at Yale Station in Lanman-Wright Hall on Elm St. All student parcels are delivered and retrieved at the Barnes and Noble Yale Student Package Center on Broadway in New Haven.

Yale Mail Service’s main hub is now located at West Campus.

Daily mail flow

The USPS delivers mail early each morning to the Yale West Campus hub. The team sorts the mail into cases and heads to campus in white Yale-logoed vans, following predetermined routes. While delivering, they also pick up outgoing and interoffice mail. Once the morning run is complete, the drivers head to the Post Office on Brewery Street for a drop off and retrieval stop.

Jackie Johnson and William Perry hand sort mail into cases that will be delivered directly to campus buildings following predetermined routes.

Available packages are then transported to the central hub and processed for delivery the following day. Interoffice mail is part of this process. “If someone misses the daily pickup and wants a special interoffice campus delivery, they have the option of scheduling a fee-based courier service,” said Michael Madera, assistant director for Transportation, Receiving, and Storage.

Less mail; more packages

“In the past decade, the volume of mail has decreased, but the number of packages has drastically increased,” said Camporeale. “It’s the national trend. We are looking into a new parcel scanning and tracking system and regularly meet with departments to improve service.”

USPS delivers mail daily at 6 a.m. to West Campus. William Perry and the rest of the team then get to work preparing it for delivery.

With the increase of barcoded packages, the team uses a scanning system for better tracking and efficiency. Yale Mail Service does not provide postage for outgoing packages or letters, but Yale Printing and Publishing Service can provide this service if needed.

To cut down on lost or misdirected mail, Camporeale and his team look at pieces in a case, research items marked “return to sender,” and conduct quality control inspections at building mail stops. “We verify if something marked for return should be returned or if it needs to be delivered elsewhere on campus,” said Camporeale.

Return to sender — or not?

The team prides itself on providing friendly customer service and workflow efficiency, which becomes difficult when mail is misaddressed, a common occurrence. When something is incorrectly addressed, time is spent researching where it belongs. In some cases, it gets returned to the sender before it reaches Yale, creating additional delays.

Cassandra Eleazer loads her van in the early morning hours.

The Yale Mail team delivers only USPS-supplied packages, while items sent by large carriers, like UPS or FedEx, are delivered directly to campus buildings. Parcels are often shipped using the address in an individual’s directory or Workday listing, which Camporeale and his team have discovered is often inaccurate. After the error is fixed, the Yale Mail team alerts the department with instructions on accurate addressing.

Trends and plans

Camporeale stays current on industry best practices, participates in seminars, and chats with other university mailroom operations personnel.

Future goals include continuing to correct and update staff and department addresses, streamlining the P.O. Box program, increasing automation, including barcode destinations at all delivery points, and installing smart lockers for parcels at all delivery points.

“These upgrades will improve security and the overall efficiency of our operations. Each year, we have fewer issues, fewer mistakes, and more monitoring, contributing to a better product overall. I’m lucky I have a great staff who do a tremendous job,” said Camporeale.

Cassandra Eleazer, Kris Jackson, Anne Leggett, Jackie Johnson, William Perry, and Crystal Streater.