The CEO of a private security company and boyhood “fire buff” has emerged as a front-runner to become FDNY commissioner, insiders say.
The candidate, Robert S. Tucker, is a member of the FDNY Foundation board of directors with longtime ties to the department.
Tucker, 51, was a member of Mayor Eric Adams’ Public Safety and Justice transition committee.
He joins other top contenders Terryl Brown, FDNY’s top lawyer, and Laura Kavanagh, who has served as acting commissioner since Daniel Nigro retired on Feb. 16.
City Hall officials said Mayor Adams has yet to decide on Nigro’s replacement, and refused to comment on Tucker.
“We do not comment on pending appointments, and no appointments are confirmed until they are formally announced,” Adams’ spokesman Fabien Levy said Saturday.
A lawyer and former special assistant to the late Queens DA Richard Brown, Tucker is now chairman and CEO of T&M USA, which offers security, intelligence and investigative services.
Tucker has influential backers, including ex-Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano, a fellow FDNY Foundation trustee, who named Tucker Honorary Fire Commissioner in 2014.
“When I was a young boy growing up in Manhattan, I was a fire buff. I used to chase fire engines on my bicycle,” Tucker says on his FDNY Foundation bio. He got his first job as a teen working for the FDNY’s communications office in Central Park.
After 9/11, Tucker joined the foundation, which promotes fire safety, to become more involved.
“As a security company owner,” he said, “I know firsthand: we have to have apparatus… fire fighters trained in high-rise safety… and communication equipment that works in high-rise buildings.”
Tucker did not return a call for comment.
