PIA MidAmerica attended the Southern AIM Conference in Arlington this week. Scott Hider with Clampitt Paper talked about the challenges and outlook regarding the paper market, MTAC (Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee) shared updates regarding various projects at USPS, and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy gave the keynote address. There are exciting things happening at USPS for sure. It should be interesting to see how this centuries old agency modernizes in the coming years. Postmaster DeJoy shared his plans for integrating package and mailing services with the ultimate goal of being the most trusted, most admired and most used service in its category. All of that is happening through a series of changes. In May of 2021, as part of “Delivering for America,” (USPS’s 10-year plan to achieve financial sustainability and service excellence), the USPS filed notice today with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) requesting price changes to take effect Aug. 29, 2021. One of those was that the 6 x 9 size postcard would now be the maximum size of a first-class mail postcard. The room is still really excited about this news. There were additional price changes this summer as well as package categorization changes as well, and we are anticipating more changes in 2023. We expect to continue to see changes over the next several years as the USPS repositions itself in the marketplace.