New Postmaster Sets Delivery Goals

Rick West, the new postmaster of the Woodland Hills Post Office, said that knowing his area contains many large corporations and organizations, he has made it a goal to provide consistent daily delivery times for all customers.

The Woodland Hills station, which also serves portions of Calabasas, includes Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, businesses in Warner Center and others that generate large amounts of mail. And seeing to it that all 96 city and five rural mail routes run on a reliable schedule is a challenge.

“The workload in the post office, from a letter-carrier standpoint, changes every day,” West said. “But I think it’s important for our customers to know that the carrier is going to come at approximately the same time every day. Not at 4 in the afternoon one day, and 10 in the morning the next.”

The 36-year-old West also said he will work to shorten the time customers spend waiting in the lobby.

A native New Yorker, West started as a letter carrier in Canoga Park in 1981. Later he served as carrier supervisor in the same office, station manager in West Hills and manager of the Encino office. He has held several other managerial positions, including acting postmaster of the Van Nuys station, and served as a member of the Pacific Area Task Force, a group of auditors reviewing operations of offices in the state.

The West Hills resident said that when he started with the postal service, he had not made the postmaster’s office a goal, or thought he would remain throughout his career. “It wasn’t until I got inside the organization that I became passionate about the post office,” West said.

The station serves 87,000 residents and employs approximately 220 people. West said it has a budget of $10.5 million and generates a combined revenue of $32 million.