Chipman Flowers Jr.

Chipman L. Flowers Jr. (born December 27, 1974, in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American politician, attorney and business owner who served as the treasurer of the state of Delaware from 2011 to 2015.

He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996, earning a bachelor's degree in economics, and then attended Georgetown University, where he earned his Juris Doctor degree and a Master of Business Administration in 2000.

While attending Georgetown, Flowers worked at the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and in the White House Office of Political Affairs during the Clinton administration.

Flowers later studied at the Harvard Kennedy School where he earned a Master of Public Administration and received the Don K. Price Award for academic excellence and public service.

After graduating from Georgetown, Flowers began his legal career in Delaware in the Wilmington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, where he worked as a mergers and acquisitions attorney.

He served as chairman of the Multicultural Judges and Lawyers Section of the Delaware State Bar Association.

Flowers worked as the Chief Democratic Analyst for Delaware Tonight, a nightly news program on WHYY-TV, where he served until the show was cancelled.

He is currently the President and Managing Member of The Flowers Counsel Group, LLC, a law firm he founded in 2006, and serves as Deputy Legal Counsel of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

Flowers is the youngest child of Ltc.

Chipman L. Flowers Sr., a retired Army officer, and C. Jean Johnson Flowers, a former teacher and guidance counselor for the U.S. Department of Defense Dependent Schools.

Flowers' father was commissioned by General Daniel "Chappie" James, the nation's first African-American four-star general officer in the United States.

As the son of a military officer, Flowers traveled extensively in his youth, attending public schools in Dallas, Texas, Lawton, Oklahoma, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He attended middle and high school in Italy while his father was stationed overseas.

He is a graduate of Vicenza American High School in Vicenza, Italy.

In 2006, Flowers founded Flowers Counsel Group, LLC, a corporate law firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions and procurement law.

The firm, which is one of the region's largest minority-owned corporate law firms, provides corporate purchasing services for international and Fortune 500 companies, as well as the nation's leading academic institutions and has represented clients in transactions totaling in excess of $1 billion.

A member of the Democratic Party, Flowers became the first African American to win a statewide election in Delaware when he was elected treasurer in November 2010 at the age of 35.

At the time, he was Delaware's youngest statewide elected official.

In 2010, after a largely self-financed campaign, Flowers won the Democratic primary for Delaware State Treasurer against incumbent Velda Jones-Potter, who was appointed by Governor Jack Markell to serve the remainder of his term, with 54.3 percent of the vote.

His platform, entitled “The Flowers Framework for Restoring Prosperity,” included a "Financial Warning System" that aimed to categorize economic conditions using a color scheme.

Additionally, Flowers proposed a "Hometown Tax Credit" that encouraged businesses to hire from Delaware schools.

In the general election in November 2010, Flowers defeated Colin R. Bonini, a three-term Republican state senator from the Dover area, 153,203 to 147,031.

Flowers, elected at the age of 35, became the first African-American elected to serve in Delaware and was the youngest statewide elected official during his term.

In 2011, his first year in office, Flowers restructured the Delaware State Treasury into four distinct offices and began publishing the Delaware Economic Index.

He implemented the Delaware Early Warning System, a financial warning system that rates the health of the state's economy.

Within 90 days of assuming office, Flowers also was confronted with the challenge of deciding whether to remove hundreds of millions of uncollateralized state funds from a potential failing financial institution, Wilmington Trust, that failed to meet the state's standards for holding deposits prior to his assuming office.

To resolve the issue, Flowers ordered the failing financial institution to move state funds into federally insured transaction accounts and proposed major reforms to diversify the state's assets by spreading state deposits throughout multiple financial institutions to reduce risk.

Though his actions to reduce the state's exposure to the failing financial institution was viewed as necessary and proper by many in the financial community and among his fellow Treasurers, it created tension with Governor Jack Markell and the Cash Management Policy Board that lasted throughout his term.he That year, he was elected to the Executive Committee of the National Association of State Treasurers, representing the treasurers of the Eastern states.

He donated his entire first year salary of over $100,000 to fund two fellowships at the Treasury in partnership with United Way of Delaware.

During 2012, Flowers and Governor Markell debated over the role of the state's Cash Management Policy Board and the need for “open and competitive” contracts in securing the state's investment managers.

Flowers contended that the board's investment decisions had led to lower than average returns on the state's investment portfolio and the state needed to engage new investment managers on an open and competitive basis to increase returns and reduce fees.

Markell and his aides, supporting the board, claimed that Flowers was attempting to usurp the board's traditional responsibilities to hire fund managers and make decisions about investment policies.

Flowers commissioned a report by Credit Suisse Securities USA, LLC, which determined that the rate of return on the state's portfolio lagged behind the returns realized by similar states.

He authored an article that summarized his position.

That same year, he increased the returns of the portfolio by $4 million.

Flowers, under a revamped model, made over $55 million for the State of Delaware during his term.

Following publication of the Credit Suisse report, the state Treasury began reallocating assets.

In October 2012, the Treasury and the board reached agreement to diversify the state's assets, increase the number of investment managers and require them to meet certain financial performance benchmarks.

The Treasury also negotiated a lower fee structure.

In May 2012, the White House commended Delaware and two other state treasuries, for their efforts to promote financial literacy, praising both the Delaware Economic Index and the Prosperity Portal, a web-based repository of information on financial topics.