Serio To Join Powerful Lobbying Firm

Revised: 09/22/2006

New York: Serio To Join Powerful Lobbying Firm

By Daniel Hays, NU Online News Service, Jan. 12, 2005 - New York Insurance Superintendent Gregory V. Serio will take a job with the influential New York lobbying firm of former U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato, it was learned today.

Mr. Serio, who announced his resignation last month, will leave office next Wednesday, but his starting date at New York City-based Park Strategies is “not really determined yet,” said a representative for the firm, Dana Weisberg.

Ms. Weisberg said that because Mr. Serio is still on the job she could not comment otherwise “on his status here.”

The Park Strategies firm is a potent force in New York, Mr. D'Amato having helped to engineer the election of Republican Gov. George Pataki to his first term in 1994.

Each year the company earns lucrative fees pushing the agenda of various billion-dollar firms in Albany, the state capitol. Clients include Lilac Capital, which has employed the firm to lobby on life insurance legislation and regulations.

Mr. Serio, a resident of the Albany suburb of Latham, is no stranger to the state legislature. From September 1989 through 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.

Prior to that post, he served as counsel to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and counsel to the Senate deputy majority leader.

He joined the insurance department in 1995 as first deputy superintendent and general counsel, and was name superintendent in May 2001.

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

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