Williams community welcomes new postmaster

WILLIAMS, Ariz. — Williams Post Office recently welcomed a new postmaster to take the helm.

Mitch Stoffel, originally from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, has already been seen helping customers and delivering packages at the local post office.

Stoffel began his federal career by enlisting in the Army in 2007.

“I started off my federal time in the army,” Stoffel said. “I was in the 75th Ranger Regiment. I was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times.”

After serving for five years, Stoffel moved to Queen Creek, Arizona. His career with the U.S. Postal Service began in 2015.

Eager to move up, Stoffel earned several promotions. His resume includes clerk, supervisor and manager.

“I wanted to move up so I just kept putting in for promotions and I kept getting them,” he said.

Stoffel had been interested in becoming a postmaster, but was particular about where he wanted to work.

“I had three cities in Arizona on my list and that’s all I wanted. I told them the requirements were trees and lakes. And apparently that’s pretty rare here (Arizona),” Stoffel said. “Williams was one of the cities that I wanted to go to, so I had to kind of wait for it to become open.”

Postmasters serve as the head of individual post offices. They’re responsible for a variety of administrative duties.

Stoffel began as the new Williams postmaster Jan. 28 and has been busy handling a lot of paperwork.

“In this level of office, you kind of get to do everything…but mostly paperwork,” he said.

Since living in Queen Creek, Stoffel is happily adjusting to the slower speed of Williams.

“It’s a lot quieter here than it was in the city, because I was working in Gilbert and Queen Creek before, and those are kind of really busy. So it’s nice actually to be able to do my paperwork,” he said.

Operations at Williams Post Office are currently running smoothly. Stoffel doesn’t plan to change much, but does hope to update the building.

“The last postmaster was here for many years and the building hasn’t been updated. So we have a lot of stuff to do there,” he said. “But other than that, everybody here has been here for years and they all know what they’re doing.”

Although many Williams residents have hoped the post office would extend their hours, the decision is not left to local post offices, Stoffel said.

“Postal operations we have no control over. Basically it’s the volume that determines the hours,” he said. “It’s a postal wide thing. It’s just based on volume.”

Stoffel was asked how the massive snowstorms in January affected operations.

“Delivery definitely had some issues recently,” he said. “But other than that, snow shouldn’t affect us much. It’s more of the roads that affect us than the snow.

Stffel said the community of Williams has been very welcoming.

“Twice, somebody’s brought me cookies,” he said. “Today, so far, somebody brought chocolates. Which were really good...thank you Sheryl,” he laughed. “It’s been really nice. I’m from a small town so this is what I’m used to.”

Although Stoffel has only been here a short time, he plans to stay in Williams for awhile.

One fun fact about Stoffel is that he is an avid rock collector.