Byron Dorgan: “I would like to talk just briefly about two Americans I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues--two heroes of…”

“I would like to talk just briefly about two Americans I want to bring to the attention of my colleagues--two heroes of mine. I have never met these men. I talked to one them on the phone the other day, a fellow named Robert Naegele. Mr. Naegele started a company called Rollerblade, which some of you may know about. It is the largest in-line skate company in America. I learned about Mr. Naegele and his company in an article I read in the Minneapolis Star Tribune when I was travelling through Minneapolis the other day by plane. Robert Naegele sold his company 2 months ago. He apparently made an enormous amount of money. He started the company from scratch, ran it, turned it into a $250 million business and then sold it recently. Then, about a week before Christmas, 280 employees of this company began to get letters in the mail from Mr. Naegele and his wife, Ellis. It turns out that he decided to give the people who had worked for his company-- the people who worked in the factories and made the skates and made him a very wealthy man--a Christmas bonus equal to $160 a month for every month these folks had worked for the company. For some of them who had been there the entire 10 years he owned the company, it meant more than $25,000. But he wasn't done. He and his wife had prepaid the income taxes on the bonuses so when these folks opened up their check, totally unexpected, from someone who no longer owned the company, they got a check that was tax free.”