The Committee of 100 | Meeting Notes

State Treasurer Jack Markell with President Diane Boc
and Executive Director Beverley Baxter

Jack Markell is not your typical politician. It's not just that he has such an impressive background pre-politics, even though he does, especially in being the 13th employee to join Nextel and helping to lead the wireless technology revolution. It's not just that he was elected to statewide office in his first foray into politics even though he was, when he was elected State Treasurer in November 1998 (then re-elected in 2002). It's not just that he brought the latest technology to the Office of the Treasurer, streamlining its process and saving tax dollars, though he did, or that he led the same IT revolution at the State in chairing the Information Services Task Force and following through to implementation.

It's all this and more, the "more" being all the ways in which Jack Markell has moved beyond the traditional narrow scope of the Office of the Treasurer to create and support a myriad of programs to promote financial literacy of Delawareans and to help to ensure that Delaware remains competitive in the new world market.

With financial education a cornerstone of Jack's vision, he created the Delaware Money School which has offered free classes to over 10,000 Delawareans since its inception. In the Delaware Bank At School Program, he partnered with the University of Delaware and Delaware banks to teach young children the basics of money and savings. His partnership with the Nehemiah Gateway Community Development Corporation has promoted awareness of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and brought more than $11 million to over 8,000 working Delawareans. There's more, but we don't have room.

In the economic development arena, Jack has been in the forefront in working to keep Delaware competitive. He understands that we must change to keep pace. In a "Delaware Voice" article, Jack noted that, "Despite a business-friendly environment, Delaware ranks 46th out of the 50 states in terms of percentage of workers employed by fast-growing companies--a key barometer of future employment prospects." With the downsizing of our major employers, we must diversify our economy, we must recognize that our competition is global, and we must make education our top priority, especially science, technology and engineering, if we are to compete.

Jack will share what's been accomplished to date and discuss where we need to go to protect our economy.