WILMINGTON — Eugene Young Jr., the former Delaware State Housing Authority Director, has been hired by
Enstructure as a key figure in its outreach to south Wilmington and Edgemoor as the Port of Wilmington eyes quadrupling its capacity.
Three months after Young had suspended his bid for the open congressional seat, he was hired by Enstructure as their vice president of government and external affairs. In his role, he will be leading communications between Enstructure and residents that live around the Port of Wilmington and the proposed Edgemoor port as plans start to take shape on what exactly the
$635 million in infrastructure improvement will mean for the First State.
Young joined Enstructure on Sept. 9.
“It’s great to have Eugene join Enstructure, and in the short time he’s been a pleasure to work with. With his experience and knowledge of the area, he’s been a great asset,” Enstructure President of Mid-Atlantic President Bayard Hogans told the Diamond State Port Corporation Board this week.
Young is a Wilmington native who leveraged his work in community activism to get a strong start in politics. In 2016, he narrowly lost the Wilmington mayoral primary election to current Mayor Mike Purzycki by less than 259 votes. A well-known name in his hometown, he founded Delaware Elite, a youth leadership development program that provided inner-city youth with academic enrichment, leadership training, and college access.
His resume also includes work in the office of U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) as well as the top job at the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, a nonprofit that works to empower people of color to achieve economic and education parity.
Gov. John Carney had tapped him in 2021 to lead the state’s housing agency at a time when Delaware increased its investment to $122 million with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). He had left the job in 2023 to run for Congress as Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) announced she would vacate the seat to hopefully replace retiring Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.)
Young declined to comment to the Delaware Business Times on why he ended his congressional campaign on Friday. He did say that he was fortunate to work with the “great team” at Enstructure and aims to work collaboratively to answer many questions the community has about the future of the port.
Earlier this year, Carney announced that the state would commit $215 million – including $55 million of already allocated funds and ARPA funds – to redevelop a 100-acre riverfront property in Edgemoor into a container port. That future development is said to have the capacity for 1.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units from container ships, as well as 3,000 jobs.
Enstructure and state officials are also pursuing funds from President Joseph Biden’s Clean Ports Program, which plans to authorize $3 billion in grants to move ports across the nation to invest in zero-emission infrastructure. Delaware and port officials are expected to hear on its application in a few weeks.
Even with pending plans at Port Delaware – the name for the project of both Edgemoor port and the existing Port of Wilmington – existing port operations are humming along. Hogan said that both
Dole Fruit and Chiquita have their shipments growing in volumes, so much so that Enstructure has to invest in hundreds of more plugs to keep refrigerated containers cold while waiting for its next shipment out.
“I’m also having calls with fruit customers, including those who deal in Chilean grapes, Moroccan clementines and Mandarin oranges. We’ll be in Madrid in a couple of weeks at a conference where we hope to meet with many customers who could call on Wilmington,” Hogan told the board.
The Port of Wilmington handles an estimated 100,000 metric tons of forest products, mostly in pulp, as well as automotive roll on, roll off cars and equipment.
Community activists have also raised questions on Enstructure’s plans for the Port of Wilmington, as many promises have been made in the past and some like Jeffrey Richardson noted that those promises had not been met. He chairs the Delaware Community Benefits Agreement Coalition, which focuses on giving those who may be impacted by major development projects across the state a voice. A key goal of the coalition is to develop a community benefits agreement to outline how residents of South Wilmington may see Enstructure reinvest back in the neighborhoods.
“We’ve always wanted to have a healthy working relationship with the port and the community, and a huge issue in this community is truck traffic and truck emissions, which is one of the risk factors for cancer,” Richardson said. “We don’t have a process in place for communication that’s been consistent for many parts around the county. It needs to change.”
Young told DBT that Enstructure is developing community outreach, and he sees himself as a point person to answer questions the residents may have.
“With what came up today, I want to be a resource to Enstructure in building channels to talk about what issues are currently at the table,” he said. “From my standpoint, we can work collaboratively to take care of this.”
