Kavanagh named FDNY commissioner

After eight months in an acting capacity and a nationwide candidate search lasting nearly that long, Laura Kavanagh was permanently appointed FDNY commissioner by Mayor Eric Adams Thursday. 

Kavanagh, 40, becomes the first woman to lead the nation’s largest and busiest fire department. Women are now securely at the helm of both the FDNY and the NYPD; Kavanagh’s permanent appointment follows, albeit by nearly 10 months, Keechant Sewell’s as head of the police department. 

Five of the Adams administration’s six deputy mayors are also women. The sixth, Adams confidant Phil Banks III, led the long search for fire commissioner. 

Adams, though, said all roads pointed back to the person who de facto held the title since Daniel Nigro left the $238,000 annual post in February following his nearly eight-year tenure as head of the roughly 17,000 employee agency.  

As administration officials searched and conducted interviews, the mayor said, “I kept coming back to Laura over and over again.”

But the mayor said the permanent appointment took as long as it did because, while he was very familiar with the NYPD, “I didn't know FDNY. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand the agency.” 

While he knew Kavanagh would be part of his administration in some capacity, it nevertheless took months of conversations with FDNY brass, the unions and firefighters to be certain that she was the most capable person to lead the department, which has occasionally been marred by racial incidents and allegations of discrimination and only began accepting women into its ranks 40 years ago. “This is an organization that is rooted in tradition, and you can't just drop anyone in FDNY,” Adams said. 

‘A reflection of the city’

The mayor cited Kavanagh’s poise and dedication, noting in particular how she responded in the direst of moments, including to the Jan. 9 Bronx high-rise fire that killed 17 people and in subsequent months the on-duty deaths of three uniformed members of the department. “Her style of leadership and commitment is just a reflection of what this city has to offer,” Adams said before the swearing-in at the Great Jones Street firehouse of Engine Company 33 and Ladder Company 9. 

He also alluded to her management of the FDNY’s response to the 2015 Ebola outbreak and to the pandemic. “New Yorkers in New York City's Bravest deserve an exceptional leader, and Laura has the vision, skills, the compassion to lead the FDNY into the future,” Adams said. 

Kavanagh embraced her permanent succession to the position, and noted that the department reflects the fabric of the city it serves, even as she has been instrumental in recasting, however incrementally, its racial and gender makeup to more accurately reflect the population.  

The FDNY, she said, “shows us that the very best of humanity is there in our darkest moments. “That is because the FDNY is made of everyday people that we all know: a dad, a sister, an uncle, a daughter, people who answered the call to serve to do extraordinary things.”

She credited the department’s 17,000 workers for strengthening her belief “that where you build a community, you create a force multiplier that does extraordinary things. 

“This is the type of FDNY commissioner I will be one that knows that I will succeed only if every person in my department and in our city sees my place at the table as also their own,” Kavanagh said.  

While she recognized her pioneering role, any consequence of that would depend on what came next. “This moment, me being first, only matters if I am not the last,” the commissioner said.

Andrew Ansbro, the president of Uniformed Firefighters Association, recalling what he said was Kavanagh’s steady hand during the pandemic, praised the permanent appointment.

“During her tenure and throughout the whole COVID-19 pandemic she has been a stabilizing leader whose accessibility has fostered an open dialogue between the UFA and the FDNY. We intend to maintain this strong working relationship with Commissioner Kavanagh and wish her the best of luck leading the greatest fire department in the world as we protect the lives of New York’s eight million residents and untold millions of commuters and tourists,” he said in a statement.

Instrumental roles

Kavanagh, a San Francisco native, was a senior adviser to Bill de Blasio during his 2013 mayoral campaign. She served as a special assistant during the first few months of his initial tenure before joining the FDNY as assistant commissioner for external affairs in 2014. 

In her subsequent role as deputy commissioner for government affairs and special projects, she was instrumental in helping implement the de Blasio administration’s $98-million anti-discrimination settlement with the Vulcan Society in 2014. 

She then oversaw a recruitment campaign that led to the largest and most-diverse applicant pool in the department’s history, when a majority of candidates who took the firefighter exam in 2017 were people of color. That testing cycle also attracted more than double the number of women who had taken a previous exam. Nigro promoted her first deputy commissioner in February 2018. 

The head of the United Women Firefighters, Jackie-Michelle Martinez, said Kavanagh’s appointment “highlights the ability, dedication and service which women demonstrate everyday to the people of New York.” 

Martinez said she was confident that Kavanagh’s leadership and management qualities would serve her well. Her challenges will include addressing perennial complaints of racism and sexism within a department and an occupation that has long skewed white and male. 

The department’s 134 female firefighters constitute just over 1 percent of the FDNY’s roughly 10,800 firefighters, significantly less, percentage-wise than national figures. That number is still the most in the FDNY’s history and more than twice as many as just seven years ago. The figure is likely to grow, in part because of Kavanagh’s efforts and now her elevated presence.  

“As the number of female firefighters increase, there will be continued interest in ensuring and creating a fair and amicable work environment,” Martinez said.

Kavanagh’s mother, who held a family Bible on which her daughter swore her commissioner’s oath, was a teacher, and her father a member of the Communications Workers of America. Both parents, she said in a 2018 interview with The Chief, came from a Catholic social-justice background that emphasized community. As a kid she attended rallies and meetings in which her parents participated. She has credited her mother and father, both union members, for instilling in her a commitment for social justice.

But a career in public service only came later, following a tenure working on President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012. Obama, she noted in the interview, “makes a very powerful case for public service in government” and she began thinking that advocating “from the outside, just getting people elected” was not sufficient. 

On Thursday, she said it was one thing to talk about change. “But it takes a leap to do something different,” she said. “And I think that's what we've done here. I think it's what I've done in the department. I think it's what you've tasked us with doing and that's what it takes. It takes making the leap, and we're finally doing that. I couldn't be more proud.”