Wayne Hasenbalg, aide to two governors, dies at 70

Wayne Hasenbalg, a state government veteran who served in the administrations of two Republican governors, died on March 29.  He was 70.

He served as president and CEO of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority from 2011 until Gov. Phil Murphy replaced him with ex-Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto in 2018.

He started out as a legislative aide to Assemblyman W. Cary Edwards (R-Oakland) in 1978 and later, while attending law school at night, was a clerk at Edwards’ law firm.  After Gov.  Tom Kean named Edwards as his chief counsel, Hasenbalg joined the governor’s office as Edwards’ assistant.  He became an assistant counsel after graduating from Seton Hall Law, and when Kean nominated Edwards as his second-term attorney general in 1986, Hasenbalg moved to the Department of Law and Public Safety as chief of staff.

After working on Edwards’ unsuccessful 1989 campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Hasenbalg joined a Secaucus law firm, Fitzpatrick & Israels.  The following year, he joined Hawkins, Delafield and Wood, a Newark firm.  He ran Edwards’ PAC, Citizens for New Jersey’s Future, leading into the former attorney general’s bid for governor in 1993, and later as campaign chairman; Edwards lost the primary to Christine Todd Whitman.

Essex County Executive James Treffinger named Hasenbalg as County Treasurer in 1995; he left about a year later to join the Teaneck-based DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick and Gluck.

In 1998, Hasenbalg represented Chris Christie, who had been ousted in the GOP primary for a second term as a Morris County Freeholder the previous year, in a defamation lawsuit.  In 2002, Hasenbalg got a job with the Morris County Improvement Authority.

He was also the  architect of the failed political career of Todd Caliguire, who lost bids for governor, Bergen County Executive, assemblyman, and state sen.  He was especially involved in Caliguire’s enormously unsuccessful Senate primary against Kevin O’Toole in 2007.  

Christie named Hasenbalg as one of his deputy chiefs of staff in 2009.