As Danfoss’ Ricardo Schneider calls for a hard look at OEV, here’s what Red Tape Florida discovered about how the office is staffed.
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida
A year ago, Ricardo Schneider — then president of Danfoss Turbocor, one of the few Tallahassee companies expanding at real scale — set a deadline: if the region didn’t land at least two new business commitments within 12 months, it would be a “community failure.” That deadline has now passed. No new businesses have been secured, and Schneider isn’t backing off.
“I’m very disappointed with where we are today,” he told the Tallahassee Democrat in a Thursday story, adding it’s time for “a discussion about the future of OEV after the election.”
“We are getting the same results,” he said. “We are doing the same things.”
That’s a pointed call for scrutiny from someone who isn’t a political opponent of OEV — he’s the former head of the company local leaders have repeatedly held up as proof the strategy works.
So Red Tape Florida reviewed OEV’s current public employee directory together with salary and personnel records obtained through public records requests to the City of Tallahassee and Leon County, to see exactly how the office charged with attracting new employers and investment is staffed.
The staffing breakdown looks like this: of OEV’s 11 current employees, two hold positions specifically designated for business development — a Business Development Manager and a Business Development Intern. Four positions are specifically assigned to the Minority, Women and Small Business Enterprise program. Three are categorized under leadership and administration, and two under research, marketing and special projects.
OEV Staff, Titles and Salaries
Listed alphabetically by last name. Based on OEV’s public staff directory (titles) and salary and personnel records obtained via public records requests (annual salary).
| Name | Title | Category | Annual Salary |
| Keith Bowers | Director, Office of Economic Vitality | Leadership & Administration | $148,195.84 |
| Jessica Grant | Administrative Specialist II | Leadership & Administration | $60,371.76 |
| Darryl Jones | Deputy Director, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise | MWSBE | $111,402.27 |
| Sean Lewis | Special Projects Coordinator | Research, Marketing & Special Projects | $96,719.92 |
| Dan Lucas | Business Intelligence Manager | Leadership & Administration | $102,827.11 |
| Kadin Musco | Business Development Intern | Business Recruitment | $32,448.00 |
| Dineta O’Hara | Business Development Manager | Business Recruitment | $100,782.15 |
| LaTanya Raffington | Senior Manager, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise | MWSBE | $90,941.71 |
| Wilnick SaintCharles | Senior Coordinator, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise | MWSBE | $78,000.00 |
| Shanea Wilks | Senior Manager, Minority Women & Small Business Enterprise | MWSBE | $94,578.46 |
| Maegen Wynn | Business Outreach & Marketing Coordinator | Research, Marketing & Special Projects | $63,999.94 |
| Total (11 current employees) | $980,267.17 | ||
Note: A twelfth employee, Violeta Wall, appears in payroll records as a Blueprint Right-of-Way Assistant earning $64,786.42 annually. That position does not appear on OEV’s current public staff directory and is not included in the table above. Combined with the 11 current employees, total salaries across all 12 payroll records reach approximately $1,045,053.59.
OEV employs one Business Development Manager and one Business Development Intern. Together, those two positions account for approximately $133,230 in annual salaries.
By comparison, four employees work in the Minority, Women and Small Business Enterprise program. Their combined annual salaries total approximately $374,922, representing about 38 percent of the office’s current payroll.
The remaining staff includes OEV Director Keith Bowers, Business Intelligence Manager Dan Lucas, Business Outreach and Marketing Coordinator Maegen Wynn, Special Projects Coordinator Sean Lewis and Administrative Specialist Jessica Grant.
To be fair, Bowers surely spends a considerable amount of his time on recruitment, in addition to managing the entire OEV operation. But if Tallahassee-Leon taxpayers were under the impression that most of OEV’s staff positions are specifically dedicated to recruiting new industry to the region, the office’s own staff directory tells a different story.
The MWSBE program certifies and assists minority-, women-, and small-business-owned firms seeking to compete for public contracts. That work is distinct from recruiting companies to relocate or expand into Tallahassee-Leon County.
OEV’s staffing structure comes as the region faces real economic headwinds by the office’s own numbers. Resident employment has fallen from 163,592 in October 2024 to 154,743 as of the most recent reporting — a decline of 8,849, or 5.4 percent — and the unemployment rate stood at 5.0 percent in May 2026, up from the mid-3-percent range a year earlier. Population growth, initially reported by the U.S. Census as a decline in 2024, has since been revised to a bare 0.13 percent gain — essentially flat.
Red Tape Florida has written extensively on these matters:
- OEV’s 2025 scorecard: A goose egg
- Skip Foster’s speech to Tiger Bay on the county’s economic distress and the reasons behind it.
The purpose of this analysis is not to suggest that one function is important and others aren’t. OEV has responsibilities beyond recruiting new industry, including administration of the MWSBE program. But attracting new employers and investment is central to the agency’s economic development mission.
The staffing records do, however, answer one factual question: of OEV’s 11 current employees, two hold positions specifically designated for business development, in a community where economic development wins are practically non-existent.
Schneider, for his part, isn’t blaming any one person. He credited OEV Director Keith Bowers by name, saying Bowers is “pushing very hard.” But his larger criticism is unmistakable: “We are getting the same results. We are doing the same things.”
OEV performs a number of functions assigned by the City and County. But staffing reflects priorities. Other OEV employees may participate in recruitment efforts as part of their broader responsibilities, but their listed positions are not specifically designated as business development — and of the two that are, one is an intern. Whether that’s the right allocation is ultimately a policy decision — one Schneider is now asking the community to have out loud.
Taxpayers deserve to know how their economic development office is actually organized going into that conversation.