Stuart K. Mathis of U.P.S. Talks About His Career I WAS born in Hattiesburg, Miss. When I was 5 years old my parents moved to Georgia, to begin new teaching jobs. Stuart K. Mathis is the president of the U.P.S. Franchise Store Network in San Diego. FAVORITE BOOK "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee LIKES TO Watch University of Georgia football and play golf About five years later, my parents divorced; my mother struggled to raise my three siblings and me. We lived in public housing, and there wasn't much to go around. As soon as I could, I started baby-sitting for neighbors. I also raked leaves, cut grass and sold a newspaper called Grit door to door. In high school I worked as a bag boy in a grocery store, and then took a job with a wholesale grocer. I went to the farmers market around 3 a.m. to buy produce. For college, I enrolled in the Air Force Academy in 1973. But I lost interest when I learned that my burst eardrum, from a childhood bicycle accident, ruled out becoming a fighter pilot. When I came home in 1974, I got a job at an office supply company, and started classes at Kennesaw Junior College (now a university) nearby. I also worked at the Six Flags Corporation amusement park near Atlanta. One of my early jobs there was frying bacon all day - and smelling like it afterward. I was making $1.80 an hour. To save money, I would drive my Econoline van the 50 miles from home to the park once a week and sleep in the van overnight. I worked my way up to assistant manager at age 19. I received my associate's degree in 1976, then earned a bachelor's in business administration from the University of Georgia. Six Flags hired me in their finance department, where I worked while studying for a master's of business administration from Georgia State University, in Atlanta. A year after I graduated in 1982, I became the controller for the Six Flags park. Three years later, I was recruited by Domino's Pizza, whose founder, Tom Monaghan, turned out to be a great mentor. I set up a new regional office in Baltimore, then moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., then to Dallas, then Los Angeles, then back to Ann Arbor. In 1992, I became executive vice president of franchise operations. While we were in Ann Arbor, my wife and I adopted two girls, 8 and 10. They are now 25 and 27, and part of a blended family with my current wife and her two children. Domino's Pizza was sold to Bain Capital in 1998, and I stayed about eight months. It was clear that there were going to be changes in operational support to the franchisees, so I left and we moved to San Diego, where we had relatives. We decided to remodel, then sell, a house in the affluent Rancho Santa Fe community. Renovating was more difficult than I anticipated, and I wouldn't do it again. When a former colleague called to say that Mail Boxes Etc., which the United Parcel Service would soon acquire, was recruiting, I was very interested. I began work in October 2001, heading a network of 70 area franchise owners with some 3,400 stores. The following October, I was promoted to president, overseeing the rebranding of our domestic stores from the name Mail Boxes Etc. to the U.P.S. Store. To focus on the U.P.S. Store brand, we sold our international network of about 1,200 locations to an Italian company in 2009. We have grown to more than 4,700 franchise locations in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, which offer shipping, packaging, online printing and other business services. We are also helping military veterans establish store franchises. Giving people a chance is one of the lessons my mother instilled in me. We were on welfare, which in those days meant flour, sugar and dry milk handouts. Mom emphasized working hard and getting an education. She set the example by going to school at night and on the weekends to earn her advanced teaching degree - to qualify for a raise to help support us. As told to Elizabeth Olson.