Laura Kavanagh was never a firefighter….
But has been from the political side for the last Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Obama campaign….
She actually had the job leading the Dept. for months as acting commissioner and has the strong support of Mayor Eric Adams…..
Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday named a woman to lead the New York City Fire Department for the first time in the agency’s 157-year history.
Mr. Adams promoted Laura Kavanagh, the acting commissioner of the department for the last eight months, to the post of commissioner at a news conference at a fire station in Manhattan, surrounded by a large group of top women leaders in his administration.
Mr. Adams said that his deputy mayor, Philip Banks III, had conducted a national search for a fire commissioner and interviewed several candidates.
“I kept coming back to her over and over again,” the mayor said. “Over and over again, I just kept coming back to her leadership…
Mr. Adams pointed to his experience working with Ms. Kavanagh on the response to a deadly fire in the Bronx in January and to members of the department who died this year.
Ms. Kavanagh, 40, will oversee 17,000 employees, including firefighters and emergency medical workers, and units such as 911 dispatch operations. As of August, there were 141 female firefighters, the most in the history of the department.
News of Ms. Kavanagh’s appointment was first reported by The Daily News on Wednesday evening.
Ms. Kavanagh was named interim commissioner in February after the previous commissioner, Daniel A. Nigro, retired. She had served as his first deputy and had earlier held several other positions in the department after joining in 2014, according to her profile on LinkedIn.
As Mr. Adams named Ms. Kavanagh commissioner, he highlighted his commitment to promoting women. She was joined onstage by more than a dozen other top female officials, including Lorraine Grillo, the first deputy mayor; Keechant Sewell, the police commissioner, and Jessica Tisch, the sanitation commissioner.
“Under his administration, there is no glass ceiling,” the mayor’s longtime adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin told reporters….
Note….
Mayor Adams has also appaointed the first New York City Woman Police Commissioner , Keechant Sewell.…
image….Laura Kavanagh will become the first woman to head the Fire Department, City Hall officials with knowledge of the appointment said.Credit…Jeenah Moon for The New York Times