N.Y. Insurance Regulator Heads To Lobbying Firm

By Daniel Hays

January 13, 2005 at 07:00 PM

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New York Insurance Superintendent Gregory V. Serio is taking a job with a lobbying firm that was co-founded by former U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato.[@@]

Serio, who announced his resignation last month, will leave office Jan. 19, but his starting date at Park Strategies L.L.C., New York, is "not really determined yet," according to Dana Weisberg, a representative for the firm.

Weisberg said that because Serio is still on the job at the New York State Insurance Department, she could not comment otherwise "on his status here."

The Park Strategies firm is a potent force in New York because D'Amato, the firm's managing director, helped get George Pataki, the state's Republican governor, elected to his first term in office in 1994.

Park Strategies clients have included Lilac Capital, which has employed the firm to lobby on life insurance legislation and regulations.

Serio, a resident of the Albany suburb of Latham, is no stranger to the state legislature. From September 1989 to December 1994, he served as chief counsel to the chairman of the state Senate Insurance Committee–the now imprisoned Sen. Guy Velella, R-Bronx, who was jailed on corruption charges.

Before Serio held the insurance committee chief counsel post, he served as counsel to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and counsel to the Senate deputy majority leader.

Serio joined the insurance department in 1995 as first deputy superintendent and general counsel, and he was named superintendent in May 2001.

To fill Serio's vacancy, Pataki has nominated Assemblyman Howard D. Mills III, R-Orange. Mills staged an unsuccessful run in November against U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

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