By Christian Finkbeiner

The United Parcel Service began in 1907 in Seattle as the American Messenger Company. It adopted its current name in the 1930s.

The company began air service in the 1920s, but suspended it after the 1929 stock market crash and did not resume it until 1953. Today, the company ships 11.5 million packages and documents, including 1.3 million by air, around the world every day.

With world headquarters in Atlanta, UPS brought in $27.1 billion in 1999. It has 344,000 employees and receives 21 million hits per day on its Web site. Two million of those hits are requests for services.

UPS has 344 chartered aircraft and serves more than 200 countries and territories, including every address in the United States.

During the 1999 election cycle, UPS gave $42,770 to members of the General Assembly. That made the company the 68^th-largest donor to state legislators.

The company favored the GOP 2-to-1 over Democrats. UPS gave:

• $28,770 to 17 Republican legislators.
• $14,000 to seven Democratic legislators.

The company’s largest contributions - $5,000 each – went to Republican Delegates John H. Rust Jr. of Fairfax and James K. O’Brien of Clifton and Democratic Delegate Thomas W. Moss Jr. of Norfolk, the former House speaker.