This week, I will be announcing that we are literally putting Deputy Insurance Commissioner Mike Vild out to pasture. After serving as the Deputy Commissioner from the first day of my administration, Mike is leaving to take a job he couldn’t refuse as the new in-house counsel for Delaware Park.

I had actually started writing a long soliloquy about Mike’s service to the Department, but then I stopped for three reasons. First, it was starting to sound like a eulogy, and Mike is still a lot closer to the beginning of his career than the end—especially after the financial hit he took in giving up his law firm partnership for the Deputy Commissioner’s job. Second, Mike refuses to read my blog, so he will never see any of this anyway—he contends that my campaign will come tumbling down as the result of something I blurt out at 4 a.m. on the blog, and he can no more bear to read it than he can watch an unfolding traffic accident. And third, whatever nice things I say about Mike will simply result in my being mocked by him and others around the office during the days that he has left.

So let me just say a couple of things. First, Mike is the best Deputy Insurance Commissioner Delaware has ever had. Period. Don’t take my word for it—ask the employees at the Department, the members of the Delaware General Assembly, the other 49 states’ insurance commissioners who dealt with Mike far more often than they dealt with me, or the reporters who cover the insurance industry nationally. They will all tell you the same thing: that Mike is super-smart, works harder than anyone, has infallible business and political judgment, and is an absolute pleasure to work with or for. The people of this state owe him big time. Second, and more selfishly, I will miss having the chance to work with a great and trusted friend every day. I have known Mike for almost 20 years, and one of the things I have enjoyed the most about the Insurance Commissioner’s job was actually getting a chance to work side by side with him. For several years our excuse for hanging out was the Eagles season tickets that we shared, then it was the Insurance Department. Now I am going to have to develop a gambling habit.

There are three things that Mike loves more than anything else: his family, horses, and Ohio State football. (There are probably more than three, but by making it three I could lay the foundation for a Monty Python Holy Hand Grenade joke.) This new job at Delaware Park will allow Mike to see his family far more often, be around the racetrack every day, and…well, it won’t do much of anything with respect to Ohio State football, but that’s for the best because the team is best known for one of the biggest title game chokes in modern NCAA history and for an insane coach who ran out onto the field to punch the other team’s player. I will bid Mike a partial farewell on that note, he wouldn’t have it any other way.