A former adviser to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and a retired Florida Department of Transportation assistant secretary are among five finalists to head the state’s public-private business recruitment agency.
Members of Enterprise Florida’s presidential search committee agreed last week to advance the five from a field of 101 applicants, with the intention of having the panel’s recommendation for the agency’s new leader go before the full board of directors on Sept. 28.
Committee members intend to individually interview the five by telephone, then narrow the list of candidates for the job, which will pay $175,000 to $200,000 a year, to two or three by Friday.
The remaining finalists would appear before the committee prior to the board’s meeting in Orlando the following week. At that committee meeting, members will select the candidate who will go before the full board.
The finalists are:
• Michael Finney, who until October 2015 was senior economic growth adviser to Michigan’s Republican governor. He has served as an assistant city manager for the city of Saginaw and as CEO of Greater Rochester Enterprise, an economic development organization in New York.
• Richard Biter, a retired Florida Department of Transportation assistant secretary, who chaired multiple planning committees at DOT, including Gov. Rick Scott’s 13-member East Central Florida Corridor Task Force.
• Michael McGee, regional senior commercial officer for the U.S. Department of Commerce in Bogota, Colombia.
• Reid Dulberger, the chief economic development officer for the Memphis and Shelby County Mayors and the CEO for the “quasi-public” Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) for Memphis and Shelby County, Tenn. He worked five years as deputy director of economic development for Syracuse, N.Y.
• Christine Adamow, a former interim department head at the Ringling College of Art and Design, and a founding member of the nonprofit International Collaborative Leadership Institute in Naples. On her Linkedin page, Adamow is listed as a managing partner with Boston-based EuphorbUS, a green energy company that provides biofuel consulting. According to Enterprise Florida, she has worked with presidents, prime ministers, members of parliament from four African nations and members of U.S. Congress from five states.
The committee is working to come up with a replacement for former President Bill Johnson, who was appointed by Scott in 2015, but stepped down this year after legislators declined to go along with the governor’s request to provide $250 million to Enterprise Florida for corporate recruitment.