She's still in college, and until recently waited on tables at a Hercules waterfront restaurant, but at 20-something, Taylor Oliva already has three years' tenure as president and CEO of a company with a multimillion-dollar portfolio.

NEO Consulting Inc./Affordable Housing Solutions Group has been Hercules' affordable housing contractor since 2003. Founder Nelson E. Oliva, the current Hercules city manager and Taylor Oliva's father, said he divested himself of his stake in the company in early 2007, shortly before he became a Hercules city employee, and that he has no influence in the company's operations these days. In 2006, Nelson Oliva had two consulting gigs with the city, as affordable housing consultant and as Hercules' assistant city manager under contract.

NEO/AHSG has attracted attention recently amid reports that the Hercules Redevelopment Agency paid double or more the value of some properties to bail their owners out of their mortgages, including two city employees and the affordable housing project manager, Rachael Redford; Redford sold an 869-square-foot condo in the Foxboro Downs neighborhood for $350,000 in December thanks to 100-percent, no-cash-down financing provided to her buyer by the Hercules Redevelopment Agency.

NEO/AHSG's services to Hercules include a First Time Homebuyer program that provides low-interest, deferred loans; and a Homeownership Retention and Loss Mitigation Program under which the agency pays off struggling owners' mortgages and

steps in as the de facto bank, issuing its own 4 percent, 40-year home loans. and sometimes buys the home outright. NEO/AHSG also runs the Redevelopment Agency-funded Business Development Loan program and several other agency programs and also provides general administration support to the agency.

The company's Web site. www.affordablehousingsolutionsgroup.com, describes Taylor Oliva, who is slated to graduate from UC Davis in December, as "the guiding force for the company."

"She is responsible for the overall operations of all corporate activities including administration, finance, and program development," reads part of her bio on the "Our Team" page.

Until her younger sisters, Gabrielle and Adrianna, became secretary and chief financial officer earlier this year, Taylor Oliva occupied those two posts as well, according to a 2007 Statement of Information filed with the California secretary of state, and also was the sole director of the company; these days there are two directors: Eguzki Olano, who also is Nelson Oliva's administrative assistant at City Hall; and Walter McKinney, the company's general manager.

Taylor Oliva did not respond to e-mail requests seeking comment. A person who answered the phone Sunday at the Powder Keg Pub, a waterfront eatery, said Taylor Oliva had stopped working there.

The "Our Team" page features a mix of municipal veterans and young professionals. At the top of the roster is Mike Sakamoto, Nelson Oliva's predecessor as Hercules city manager; Sakamoto also owns Municipal Management Enterprises LLC, which runs the Hercules Municipal Utility under contract.

Second on the team list is McKinney, a former police chief of Desert Hot Springs and Hawaiian Gardens. McKinney also owns a consulting company, the McKinney Group; that company's Web site, http://professionalstrategicpartners.com, cites, under "Current Projects," a "$56 million multiuse residential over retail development with affordable rental and ownership components;" that description coincides with Hercules' Sycamore Downtown Street Development, which broke ground in May.

The other team members on the list are Imelda Deano, a CPA with 25 years' experience, much of it in local government, according to a bio; Nicole Richardson, credited with managing six programs for the city of Hercules, including the Loss Mitigation and Business Development Loan programs; Jonathen Sakamoto, who has a master's degree and is completing a Land Use Planning Certificate Program at UC Davis; Kenneth Hickok; Nicole Stier; and Redford, who manages an $8.6 million loan portfolio and holds a California Real Estate License, according to the company Web site.

But Bill Koenig, the state Department of Real Estate's Northern Regional manager for enforcement, said earlier this month he could not find a real estate license issued to anyone by the name of Rachael Redford or Rachael Kipperman, her maiden name.

Seven of the nine NEO team members listed on the company Web site also are on a list of holders of city of Hercules e-mail addresses; two more names, Kenneth McIntosh and Vaneeta Chintamaneni, appear on the city list under "Affordable Housing"; John Balico, the son of Hercules City Councilman Ed Balico, worked for NEO/AHSG earlier this year, but he is not on the city e-mail list that the city provided to a reporter last month.

Redford and McKinney did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.

Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760.