NEW SENIOR VP. Ralph Moden, most recently USPS VP for Strategic Planning, has been named senior VP for Government Relations. Moden now will have responsibility for all aspects of government relations for USPS.

"Ralph's understanding of the important strategic and legislative issues facing the Postal Service, his ongoing work with virtually all USPS stakeholder groups and his broad understanding of postal operations make him uniquely suited to this position," said PMG Jack Potter, announcing the selection. Moden is a 28-year USPS veteran who successfully worked with a broad range of postal stakeholders to create the Transformation Plan, the current USPS blueprint for change.

NEW STAMP CHIEF. David Failor has been named manager of Stamp Services, replacing Cathy Caggiano, who is retiring. Stamp Services is responsible for the entire U.S. postage stamp program, with plans for the 2003 program recently announced. Details and illustrations of next year's stamps may be found at www.usps.com.

RETURN TO SENDER. Return To Sender (RTS) mail is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Two USPS areas - Eastern and Southeast - have implemented productivity initiatives to reduce manual processing of RTS mail. And that will reduce costs.

The Eastern Area is applying a yellow sticker to each RTS mailpiece and checking off the endorsement.

The Southeast Area is consolidating RTS mail by endorsements, processing it on automation machinery and spraying the "reason for return" endorsements in red ink on the envelope. The endorsement is located above the delivery address and below the stamped area, on the right side of the envelope. It's important for field managers, clerks and carriers to recognize the new RTS endorsement formats.

The RTS mail will read "Return To Sender" in red ink followed by one of these endorsements: "Undeliverable as Addressed," "Attempted, Not Known," "Insufficient Address," "No Such Number" or "For Reason Shown." If it says "For Reason Shown," a handwritten explanation will appear underneath.