Steve Rofsky continues to bring people together.
This was true throughout his career as a credit analyst at Ambac Assurance Corp., with the Hoboken, N.J., Municipal Hospital Authority, and recently at Moody’s Investors Service, where at each he demonstrated the congenial manner and collegial approach he used to steer people toward a common goal. And it is also said to have been true among his family and friends.
Mr. Rofsky died Thursday at age 55. Yet comments from those who knew him personally and professionally, both online and in phone conversations, attest to the fact that he continues to bring people together, this time in admiration and tribute.
“Steve was always able to be conciliatory and bring people together, even if the situation, on the surface, seemed to be right for an adversarial view,” Bruce Mattaway, a municipal credit analyst at PIMCO who worked with Mr. Rofsky at Ambac for about 15 years, told The Bond Buyer. “It requires a certain patience and professionalism and politics to do.”
Several readers of the Hudson Mile Square View in and around Hoboken praised his work for the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority and his efforts to save the Hoboken University Medical Center. Two Ambac employees used the site to compliment his attitude, personality and how pleasant it was to work for and with him.
“That Steve was called a hero like others who worked to save the hospital is not news, Hoboken knows he is a hero,” a reader named LightCoffee wrote in the Comments section. “It’s a tribute to him that others who grew up and worked with him speak so highly about him with his untimely passing. God bless Steve and his family.”
Mr. Rofsky was most recently an associate managing director for U.S. public finance local government surveillance at Moody’s. At the same time, he was also treasurer of the Hoboken Municipal Hospital Authority. He led its finance committee and also coordinated the annual audits, wrote Toni Tomarazzo on Hudson Mile Square View, who worked with Mr. Rofsky on the authority,
“Steve’s greatest contribution was his even-tempered disposition that was steady as a rock,” Tomarazzo wrote. “His collegial demeanor and sharp wit were always present and his extensive knowledge of health care, financing and workouts provided the platform for the successful sale of Hoboken University Medical Center.”
Before Moody’s, Mr. Rofsky worked at Ambac, where his initial focus concentrated on health-care portfolio risk management and expanded to encompass several other bond sectors, said Steve Rochford, portfolio manager for health care and housing at the firm.
In 2007 through 2009, Mr. Rofsky led the initiative to uncover and resolve the company’s involvement with troubling collateralized debt obligations and various real estate transactions that it had insured in its structured finance group, Mattaway said.
Mr. Rofsky is survived by his wife, Toby, and his sons, Phillip and Marc.
