View source for Thomas von Essen

{{short description|30th FDNY Commissioner of New York City}}
'''Thomas Von Essen''' {{post-nominals|list=[[Order of the British Empire|CBE]]}} (born 1945 in [[Brooklyn, New York]]) was appointed the 30th [[FDNY Commissioner]] of the [[New York City|City of New York]] by Mayor [[Rudolph W. Giuliani]] on April 15, 1996, and served in that position until the end of the Giuliani Administration on December 31, 2001, nearly four months after the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]].

== Biography ==
Von Essen is a member of the [[Essen family]], who are part of the [[German nobility|German]] and [[Swedish nobility]]. He is a graduate of [[St. Francis College]], class of '72. 

In 2002 he was made an Honorary Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) by [[Queen Elizabeth II]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/15/gen.guiliani.knighthood/index.html |title=Giuliani 'humbled' by knighthood
|date=October 15, 2001 |website=[[CNN]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050910043358/http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/15/gen.guiliani.knighthood/index.html |archive-date=10 September 2005}}</ref>

In 1993 Von Essen was elected as President of the [[Uniformed Firefighters Association]] representing the department's firefighters. He was formerly a Senior Vice-president at [[Giuliani Partners]] and chief executive officer of Giuliani-Von Essen LLC. {{citation needed|date=February 2010}}

Von Essen was the Commissioner for the [[New York City Fire Department]] when the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center took place. He personally went to the Twin Towers to oversee evacuations by his department following the arrival of the first units there with 1st Battalion Chief [[Joseph W. Pfeifer]] and the companies with him, who were investigating a report of a smell of gas only a few blocks away when [[American Airlines Flight 11]], piloted by [[Mohamed Atta]], crashed into the North Tower, followed 17 minutes later by [[United Airlines Flight 175]], piloted by [[Marwan al-Shehhi]], slamming into the South Tower. Von Essen and his men evacuated as many people as they could until the South Tower collapsed 56 minutes after it was hit, at which point Chief Pfeifer ordered all personnel to evacuate the North Tower before it collapsed. Von Essen escaped the collapse of the Twin Towers, and continued to serve as FDNY Commissioner until Mayor [[Rudy Giuliani]]'s term ended in December 2001, by which time Von Essen wanted to preserve the accounts of the FDNY's members “before they became reshaped by a collective memory.”.
https://www.ae911truth.org/evidence/technical-articles/articles-by-ae911truth/128-118-witnesses-to-explosions-in-the-fdny-oral-histories. He was succeeded by [[Nicholas Scoppetta]] as FDNY Commissioner under new NYC Mayor [[Michael Bloomberg]].

In October 2017 Von Essen was named FEMA Regional Administrator for Region II in New York City by [[President of the United States|President]] [[Donald Trump]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.fema.gov/thomas-von-essen|title=Thomas Von Essen - FEMA.gov|website=www.fema.gov}}</ref>

==Personal life==
He and his wife, Rita, have four children; the youngest is actor and singer, and Tony nominee [[Max von Essen]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00E6DD173BF93AA15756C0A962958260|title = WEDDINGS; Pamela von Essen and John W. Keller|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 29 May 1994}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/99b/pr439-99.html NYC govt. website]

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{{succession box| before=[[Howard Safir]]| title=[[FDNY Commissioner]]| years=1996&ndash;2001 | after=[[Nicholas Scoppetta]]}}
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{{New York City Fire Commissioner}}

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[[Category:1945 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Commissioners of the New York City Fire Department]]
[[Category:Survivors of the September 11 attacks]]
[[Category:People from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Date of birth missing (living people)]]
[[Category:St. Francis College alumni]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Essen family]]
[[Category:21st-century American people]]
[[Category:September 11 attacks]]

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