Leadership

First Deputy Commissioner

Print icon Print

Joseph Pfeifer

First Deputy Commissioner

First Deputy Commissioner

The First Deputy Commissioner is the second in command at the New York City Fire Department. The current First Deputy Commissioner is Joseph Pfeifer.

Joseph (Joe) Pfeifer, 67, retired from the FDNY in 2018 as an Assistant Chief. He is the founding director of FDNY’s Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness. As a Battalion Chief on September 11th, he was the first Chief to respond to the World Trade Center attacks. While at FDNY, Pfeifer served for 17 years as the Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness, shaping strategic planning, intelligence sharing, and interagency response.

Pfeifer began his career in 1981, first assigned to Engine Company 234 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In 1987 he was promoted to Lieutenant and assigned to Ladder Company 128 in Long Island City, Queens, and in 1993 he was promoted to Captain and assigned to Engine Company 307 in Jackson Heights, Queens. A promotion to Battalion Chief in 1997 led to his assignment to Battalion 1 in Lower Manhattan, where he was serving on the morning of September 11th, 2001. In 2002, he was promoted to Deputy Chief and assigned to Division 1 in Manhattan and then shortly later to Deputy Assistant Chief. He was cited twice for bravery, including for a rescue of an elderly woman trapped by fire.

He currently serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor in Columbia University’s the School of International Public Affairs and the Director of Crisis Leadership at the Columbia Climate School’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. He is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, teaching several executive education programs on crisis leadership and leading research teams to examine the preparedness and response of international cities to extreme events, and at the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point, teaching cadets at the U.S. Military Academy.

He graduated with a B.A. from Cathedral College, and earned Master of Arts degrees from Immaculate Conception Seminary, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Harvard Kennedy School.