My experience has included local, state, and federal government relations working for the University of Delaware.as their lobbyist for 26 years. In 2013 I started my own firm and represented the NRA, the City of Newark, and the Foundation for Government Accountability. In 2019 James DeChene and I created a partnership and added the State Chamber of Commerce and Wine Institute as additional clients. Our firm is relatively new in Delaware, but together James and I have a combined 30 plus years advocating in Dover. We focus on serving clients by leveraging our relationships in the General Assembly and related state agencies and have worked on issues across the spectrum.

20+ years

Rick's 30+ years' experience successfully advocating for clients by presenting information well in oral and/or written testimony has put him in contact with the Delaware Federal delegation, every State legislator, their staff members and before almost every cabinet agency in Delaware. Representing different clients has required a large breadth of knowledge on issues related to every facet of the Delaware business and nonprofit community.

In 2019 Rick, along with partner James DeChene, created Armitage DeChene & Associates, a government relations firm covering Delaware.

Rick's career began at the University of Delaware in 1972 working as a Security Officer for the Department of Public Safety. Over a fourteen-year period he progressed to Assistant Director overseeing all Police Operations for 32 officers. In January of 1986 he was tasked to help with Government Relations in Dover. In October of 1986 he became the Director of Government Relations and for the next 26 years represented University interests at the local, state, and federal levels. The major focus was appropriations from the state, working with the federal delegation seeking federal grants, and the public relations conflicts created by a major university in a small city. The University touches almost every citizen of Delaware in some way. Providing jobs as the eighth largest employer in the state, ~4000 qualified graduating students to compete for jobs, sports entertainment by a Nationally ranked football program, and the immense expertise provided by the faculty and staff to the agribusiness and K-12 communities. The University as a large employer also was impacted by changes to laws for labor, environment, procurement, FOIA, transportation, recycling, alcohol, nursing, medical technology, physical therapy, admissions criteria, clean energy, and many other areas plus changing state regulations. It was easy to say representing the University you needed to be a mile wide because every day you became aware of another place the University was interacting with Delawareans.

After retiring from the University in 2012, Rick was bored at home and returned to his skill set of lobbying but had no clients when the General Assembly convened in 2013. Before the month of January was over, He was asked to represent the NRA, and urged to compete for the contract to represent the City of Newark. Both became his first new clients. The NRA is a lightning rod client for the peoples right to bear arms. The experience as a police officer and two years as a detective was helpful understanding and explaining the pluses and minuses of well-intentioned legislation being introduced to reduce violence with firearms and how ineffective those laws were having passed in some other states many years ago. The City of Newark advocacy has many similarities to those of the University. Newark is the third largest city in Delaware and is impacted by changes to labor, environmental, FOIA, recycling, transportation, clean energy, etc. laws. Newark also competes for funding from the state to repave streets, support its busing program and huge property tax deficit of the University owned property in the city.

In 2018 he was recruited to represent the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA). FGA is a non-profit focusing on government programs in place that that could be run more cost effectively, or government policies that cripple cost effectiveness. An example: Delaware prohibits Associated Health Plans which could provide lower cost medical plans for small business owners. Small businesses could join to form a group that would allow them to be treated as a large employer by insurance companies, thus providing lower rates. Delaware licensing Boards had several restrictions built into licensing criteria that prohibited a person convicted of a crime from being licensed in that profession. When examined there was no good reason for the license restriction prohibition, and we succeeded in changing several licensing laws.

In 2019 James and Rick created the new partnership. James brought along his affiliation with the State Chamber as a new contract and we also added the Wine Institute. As outlined in James bio information the Chamber represents business interests statewide and was also a good fit with Rick's experiences representing the University as a large employer. The Wine Institute has been seeking the ability to ship wine product directly to customers in Delaware for years. We have a model bill which continues to be blocked by the union interests as they receive less money transporting direct shipments rather than using the current system in place. Delaware remains one on the eight states left prohibiting direct shipments. We are enjoying the diversity of our client base and look forward to expanding who we represent in the very uncertain times we are all living.

Rick lives with his wife on the Elk River a northern tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. His son works as a bond trader on Wall Street. He continues to play golf badly and competes in IDPA.