Wading River Fire Department entered trailblazer territory this year with the installation of a woman as its chief of department.
Wading River Fire Department Chief Denise Gluck was installed as chief last month.
Gluck, who first joined the Wading River Fire Department in 1999 at age 19, is one of only a handful of women to ever serve as chief of one of Suffolk County’s 106 all-volunteer fire departments. Gluck is also the first female fire chief of any of the fire departments serving the Town of Riverhead.
She first joined WRFD as an EMT in its rescue company, then decided to sign on as a firefighter. She made captain in 2004 and started in the chief’s office in 2017 as the department’s third assistant chief.
Gluck, 42, is in her 17th year of service in WRFD. She left the department when she moved out of the district and rejoined six years later, in 2011, when she moved back into the district.
Originally from Ronkonkoma, her family moved to Wading River when she was 13.
“Community service is something my parents instilled in me from a young age,” Gluck said in an interview this week.
The chief is not the only one in her family who has broken through the glass ceiling in public service. Her sister is Danielle Willsey, who in November became the first female lieutenant in the Riverhead Police Department.
An RN with advanced degrees in nursing and health administration, Gluck works as director of nursing for emergency services for NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue in Manhattan.
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