Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to retire; Megan Brennan to succeed

WASHINGTON -- Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, who has led the financially troubled U.S. Postal Service for four years, will retire in February, paving the way for the service's first female postmaster general.

Megan Brennan, a 28-year veteran who is the agency's chief operating officer, will succeed Donahoe to become the 74th postmaster general and chief executive, the Postal Service Board of Governors said yesterday.

Donahoe has worked at the agency for 39 years, starting as a clerk in Pittsburgh.

He stepped into the top job in 2010 in the middle of the financial crisis that hit the agency hard. While its finances have improved recently, the agency has spent most of the past six years in financial trouble as electronic bill payment and communication have overshadowed the use of postal services.

The agency said separately yesterday it ended fiscal 2014 with a loss of $5.5 billion, after a $5 billion loss last year. First-class mail, the agency's most profitable product, fell by 2.2 billion pieces in 2014.

A 2006 Congressional mandate to prefund the health care of its future retirees has also taken a toll on the agency, causing it to default several times on the required installments.

Donahoe has led some drastic cost-cutting moves, including cutting the postal workforce by about 220,000 people, eliminating some delivery routes and consolidating processing centers, and has attempted to eliminate Saturday delivery. -- Reuters