The NC DMV has a new leader, and he’s a familiar name around Raleigh
Wayne Goodwin, who once led the state Department of Insurance and later the state Democratic Party, has been chosen the new commissioner of the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles.
Goodwin replaces former DMV Commissioner Torre Jessup, who stepped down in November to become chief operating officer of the state Department of Information Technology.
Goodwin, a lawyer, served two four-year terms as insurance commissioner, an elected office, before losing to Mike Causey in 2016. He was elected chairman of the Democratic Party in early 2017 and served two two-year terms before declining to seek a third last year.
He lost a rematch with Causey for the insurance commissioner’s job in 2020.
The N.C. Department of Transportation announced Goodwin’s new job late Friday.
“Wayne is a distinguished public servant who understands how to manage a customer-facing agency and the need to deliver results,” Transportation Secretary Eric Boyette said in a written statement. “Wayne’s background as an attorney and knowledge of motor vehicle statutes will be invaluable to our agency.”
Goodwin, 54, grew up in Hamlet and attended UNC Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar and later as a law student. Starting in 1997, he served eight years in the state House, representing rural counties east of Charlotte.
Goodwin lives in Raleigh with his two children; his wife, former state Rep. Melanie Wade Goodwin, died of cancer in 2020.
He begins his new job Tuesday, Jan. 18.
Jessup became DMV commissioner in 2017 and steered the agency through a tumultuous time.
Like licensing agencies across the country, the DMV found itself overwhelmed in 2018 by people seeking a REAL ID, a new type of drivers license that satisfies identification requirements mandated by Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Jessup instituted a series of reforms meant to reduce wait times and improve customer service at driver’s license offices.
The federal government later put off the requirements that prompted the REAL ID until May 2023.
Jessup also oversaw the relocation of the DMV headquarters from Raleigh to Rocky Mount, starting in the fall of 2020. The General Assembly required the agency to leave its long-time home on New Bern Avenue and seek leased space elsewhere in Wake or an adjoining county.
The Rocky Mount site, once headquarters to the Hardees restaurant chain, was chosen because it met the DMV’s needs at the lowest price. Many workers chose not to remain with the agency, forcing it to fill vacancies that climbed to more than one in four jobs.
Then there was COVID-19. The pandemic prompted DMV to close many of its driver’s license offices, creating a backlog that lasted into 2021.
This story was originally published January 14, 2022 at 5:09 PM.
