The Malmberg family welcomed old friends and employees to an informal gathering in front of the company's headquarters on the boulevard to celebrate the launch of its 45th anniversary celebration and to unveil the portraits of the company founders in the entrance foyer.
Among guests flocking in to congratulate Harold, Maude, Lisette, Ricky and the third generation kids, Thalia, Samantha & Ricardo, his Excellency the Minister of Tourism, Edison Briezen, the Director of the Aruba Tourism Authority Myrna Jansen, Attorney Roy Brown, Publisher Rory Arends and the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association CEO Jorge Pesquera. Guests of honor at the festive occasion were Wichi De Palm the original founder of De Palm Tours, started in 1960, and Ramon Richardson, a former partner, the man who in 1971 courageously took over the enterprise with Malmberg. "It is with great pleasure that I congratulate all of you with the 45th anniversary of our company," Malmberg said. "Our company had nothing when it started. What we had was a burning ambition to serve the tourism industry of our country and become the best tourism service company in the Caribbean.
Over the past 45 years we slowly grew together with Aruba's tourism industry. We reached where we are today through hard work and thanks to the strong and loyal commitment of all our employees and stakeholders. Among our stakeholders we count our employees, shareholders, suppliers, partners, and above-all our customers. Without our customers we have no company. We now look forward to the next 45 years and hope that our company will continue to flourish. However, we will only continue to grow and flourish in the next 45 years if we never forget what we had to do during the first 45 years of our existence," Malmberg concluded.
Harold D. Malmberg, Chairman, De Palm Corporation Inc. operates De Palm Tours Watersport, De Palm Island, De Palm Financial Services and Western Union, De Palm Car Rental and more with his children Ricky & Lisette Malmberg sharing the responsibility for operations, business development, marketing and sales.
During the ceremony emceed by Ricky Malmberg, sister Lisette Malmberg gave an emotive presentation lauding her father's life's work; flowers were presented to Maude Malmberg for her steadfast support of the family business. Then portraits were unveiled that of Harold Malmberg and that of Wichi de Palm in the company foyer.
