DHL Express

Deutsche Post AG

Trading name	DHL Express
Type	Division
Industry	Express Logistics
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Bonn, Germany
Key people	Ken Allen (Chairman) Adrian Dalsey (Co-founder) Larry Hillblom (Co-founder) Robert Lynn (Co-founder)
Products	DHL Express Worldwide DHL Express 9:00 DHL Express 12:00
Number of employees	325,000
Parent	Deutsche Post
Website	www.dhl.com

DHL Express is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post DHL providing international express mail services. Deutsche Post DHL is the world's largest logistics company operating around the world, particularly in sea and air mail.

Founded in the United States in 1969 to deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu; the company expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s. The company was primarily interested in offshore and inter-continental deliveries, but the success of FedEx prompted their own intra-US expansion starting in 1983. DHL expanded to countries that could not be served by any other delivery service, including Cuba, the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, Iraq, Iran, China, Vietnam and North Korea.

In 1998, Deutsche Post began to acquire shares in DHL. It reached majority ownership in 2001, and completed the purchase in 2002. Deutsche Post then effectively absorbed DHL into its Express division, while expanding the use of the DHL brand to other Deutsche Post divisions, business units and subsidiaries. Today, DHL Express shares its DHL brand with other Deutsche Post business units, such as DHL Global Forwarding and DHL Supply Chain.

While Larry Hillblom was studying law at University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law in the late 1960s, he accepted a job as a courier for the insurance company Michael's, Poe & Associates (MPA). He started running courier duty between Oakland International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport, picking up packages for the last flight of the day, and returning on the first flight the next morning, up to five times a week.