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

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City 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.

“From that summer job and that paper map I became absolutely captivated by the business of public safety,” Tucker said. “Because, well, what’s not to love?”

A New York City native, Tucker is a graduate of George Washington University and the Pace University School of Law.

Before joining T&M he spent nearly a decade in the Queens district attorney’s office, where he served as special assistant to then-District Attorney Richard A. Brown.

As fire commissioner, Tucker will be in charge of the fire department’s 17,000 employees and a $2 billion budget.