Chocolate Donuts and the Big Apple

First, let’s cover Labor Day. The Labor Day Parade in downtown Wilmington on Monday was a lot of fun. Adam, Zach and I marched with our friends from the Delaware State Education Association (well, technically I marched and dragged them along in their official red parade wagon), and before the parade had even started they had loaded up the wagon with apples from DSEA, balloons from the electrical workers, and frisbees from the sheet metal workers.

After the parade was over, things got dicey. I wanted to stop by the picnic that AFSCME puts on for its public sector union members every year in Banning Park. The boys had visited with me in 2005 and 2006, everyone loved seeing them, and I wanted to bring them back this year. But we had 45 minutes to kill, and they both looked like they were getting sleepy. I had a plan: I would get them to the Dunkin Donuts near Banning Park, let them each have a donut and a glass of milk, and that would sustain them for at least half an hour at the park until they were ready for their naps. My plan may not have been endorsed by the American Pediatric Association, but I was a desperate man. As we closed in on Dunkin Donuts, though, I could see Adam starting to nod off in the back seat. I tried everything. I turned up the Wiggles. I tried to start sing-alongs. I stooped so low as to actually tell him that if he stayed awake for another five minutes, he would get a chocolate donut. Nothing worked. He nodded off, muttering "chocolate donut" to himself. Zach was five minutes behind him, and I took them home to Mrs. Denn and attended the AFSCME picnic sans Denn boys. And yes, everyone wanted to know where they were.

Today, I am off to New York for most of the day along with some of the top members of the Delaware bar and the Delaware financial services community, to talk to New York businesspeople about Delaware’s efforts to become the nation’s home to captive insurance companies. Captive insurance companies are, generally speaking, insurance companies that are set up and owned by private companies as an alternative to buying their insurance from traditional insurance companies. They are a very good idea for lots of businesses for lots of different reasons, and when I took office in 2005 I worked with our business community and legislators to transform Delaware into the most attractive state in America for captive insurance companies to locate. We succeeded, and now we are trying to spread the word—you can read about our trip in today’s News Journal here.

Down the road, this captive insurance effort could be a real economic boost for our state, and I am very proud to have worked closely with the private sector in Delaware to make it happen. It is a good example of how I intend to work with our business sector as Lieutenant Governor to encourage business growth across the board.