A Riverside County native and longtime Sacramento bureaucrat, George Valverde received a bachelor of arts degree and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of California, Riverside. He also attended Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government. Valverde, a Democrat, began his long tenure in California government as a budgetanalyst for the Department of Finance in 1981. In 1995, he moved to the State and Consumer Services Agency as deputy secretary for fiscal operations. He became the agency’s undersecretary in 2004 before being tapped by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in March 2006 to head the DMV. He left in 2013.

Valverde Appointed (DMV website)