SPECIAL DEPUTY COMMISSIONER APPOINTED TO OVERSEE AUTO INSURANCE

TRENTON - Rolando Torres Jr. of Lawrenceville has been named Special Deputy Commissioner for Auto Insurance, Banking and Insurance Commissioner Holly C. Bakke announced today.

Torres, an attorney, has been a public servant for most of his legal career. Prior to joining the Department, he was vice president and corporate counsel at Prudential Insurance Co. of America. His first assignment at the Department will be to facilitate the Commissioner’s newly established working group studying auto insurance.

"Rolando Torres brings with him a special expertise in consensus building and reconciling diverse interests on public policy issues, as well as two decades’ worth of public sector experience," Commissioner Holly C. Bakke said. "He is a welcome addition to the Department of Banking and Insurance and to state government."

Prior to working at Prudential, Torres served as Director of the Division on Civil Rights within the Department of Law and Public Safety, where he was credited with implementing management reforms to reduce the agency’s significant case backlog. He also was Law and Public Safety’s Assistant Director of Enforcement, where he investigated employment, housing and public accommodations discrimination.

Torres also served as special counsel to the former New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate. Before that, he was an Assistant Deputy Public Defender with the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender.

Mr. Torres received his law degree from Rutgers University School of Law, Newark, in 1982. He also is a graduate of Herbert H. Lehman College, Bronx, N.Y.