Robert Tucker, the head of a security firm, is named fire commissioner of New York City

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Monday appointed Robert S. Tucker, the head of a private security firm, as head of the city’s fire department.

Tucker, 54, succeeds Laura Kavanagh, the first woman to become the city’s fire commissioner.

“I can’t imagine a higher calling than being the fire commissioner of New York City,” said Tucker, the chairman and CEO of security firm T&M USA, said at a press conference. “This is truly a dream come true.”

Like Kavanagh, who resigned as fire commissioner after two yearsTucker 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 Manhattan Fire Department’s communications office, where he says he became “obsessed” with mapping the locations of multi-alarm fires in the borough.

“That summer job and that paper map got me really into public safety stuff,” Tucker said. “Because, well, what’s not to love?”

Tucker is originally from New York City and graduated from George Washington University and Pace University School of Law.

Before I came to T&He spent nearly a decade with the Queens District Attorney’s Office, where he served as a special assistant to then-District Attorney Richard A. Brown.

As fire commissioner, Tucker is responsible for the department’s 17,000 employees and a $2 billion budget.