VIDEO: Mayor Eric Adams on Monday appointed Robert S. Tucker, the head of a private security firm, to head the city's fire department.
Tucker, 54, takes over from Laura Kavanagh, the first woman to serve as the city's fire commissioner.
“I can think of no higher calling than serving as a fire commissioner of New York,” Tucker, the chairman and CEO of security firm T&M USA, said at a news conference. “This is truly a dream come true.”
Like Kavanagh, who stepped down after two years as fire commissioner, Tucker has never worked as a firefighter.
Tucker has served on the board of directors of the FDNY Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for the fire department. As a teenager, he interned in the department's Manhattan communications office, where he said became “obsessed” with mapping the locations of the borough's multiple-alarm fires.