Who REALLY Is Vanessa Lucido Behind the Oak Island Team Drills?

The worst case scenario would be to continue here. Compromise the integrity here in this general area. Who’s in? I’m in. I’m in. Got to show. Everybody’s in. Diggings at 160. Yeah, it could be the treasure vaults. We’re about to get into totally new territory. My dig is at 160 ft.

Vanessa Lukido was gone right after bringing the biggest drills to Oak Island. Vanessa did not just help. She led the team, the tools, and the deep digging. For many days, she worked in the dirt, near danger, and made the hard calls. But one day in 2024, her name was taken off the company page with no note at all.

Tune in because the new boss who showed up after her left a trail no one expected. Vanessa drilled deep then vanished.

Back in season 6, when Oak Island needed to go deeper than ever before, they didn’t just grab shovels and hope for the best. They called in serious hardware, the kind that can chew through rock like a hot knife through butter. ROC Equipment was the name on the machines, and she was the name standing in front of them.

She didn’t come alone, though. She brought an entire crew, massive rigs, and an aura of importance that made fans take notice. Those 8-foot-wide caissons? That was her team’s doing. Without them, the search for buried treasure would have hit a solid wall.

But she was about to make a move that no one saw coming.

When she showed up on screen, it wasn’t some scripted drama. She was there to oversee drilling that could collapse if someone sneezed the wrong way. ROC Equipment wasn’t there to look pretty. It was there to work. But even with mud on her boots, some people couldn’t stop looking past the gear. They were too busy wondering who she really was beneath the branded jacket.

It’s concerning enough that I think we’re doing the right thing, but it’s not concerning enough that we’re evacuating. Everyone’s moving out of here right this minute.

Her last name isn’t just a coincidence. Her father, Lulu Lucido, founded the company. He built it up piece by piece into a respected name in heavy drilling. After he passed away, she took the lead. On paper, it sounds like a classic story of legacy. In reality, it sparked a lot of side eye from viewers.

There were whispers. Did she earn that corner office or did she just inherit the key? It’s a fair question, especially in an industry packed with people who spent decades working their way up. In the eyes of some fans, she was the golden child. Others saw her as a worker who simply kept the machine running after dad stepped away. Both camps had their receipts.

Her leadership during season 6 and 7 suggested she knew what she was doing, but there was always that lingering doubt. How much of this was her expertise, and how much was the script painting her as a behind-the-scenes genius?

Take a stroll through Reddit and you’ll find no shortage of opinions. Threads pop up like mushrooms after rain. Some users praised her calm in chaotic moments. Others weren’t buying the narrative. Comments like, “She’s just the face, not the force,” weren’t rare.

It wasn’t about bias. It was about skepticism. There’s a difference between running a company and showing up when cameras roll. But as the seasons marched on, something shifted.

Uh, it looks like it’s about 18-ish down all the way around and then it’s kind of crawling out. So, we got to slow it down. She was suddenly out of the frame. The machines kept humming, but her name faded from the call sheet.

And then came the update in 2024.

ROC’s official site did a quiet little shuffle. Ed Robinson was now listed as CEO. No fanfare, no farewell statement, no photos of a goodbye party, just a name swap. Her name vanished from the leadership page. The mystery deepened.

Naturally, this didn’t go unnoticed. People started poking around asking questions. What happened? Did she leave voluntarily? Was it a board decision? A shakeup? Maybe a buyout? The company didn’t say.

And silence has a funny way of inviting speculation.

In a world where press releases are handed out like candy, that kind of silence stands out. That gap in information created a perfect storm. Fans filled the void with their own theories. Some suggested she wanted out. Others claimed she was pushed aside. There were even whispers about internal drama.

The truth might be simple, but the silence made it feel complicated. And where there’s confusion, there’s curiosity. She went from being a side character to the center of a guessing game.

Beyond the speculation and the company shuffle, there was another conversation brewing. One that had less to do with drilling and more to do with distractions.

A certain segment of the fan base had their eyes glued to her for reasons that had nothing to do with excavation. Her appearance became the headline. Not the machines, not the digging, not the technical talk — just her. It started with small comments buried in threads. Then it snowballed.

Her outfits, her expressions, her onscreen time — everything was analyzed like it mattered more than what she actually brought to the table. It got uncomfortable. It got ridiculous. And it took away from what she actually did, which was help move a centuries-old mystery forward with some of the best tools in the business.

Still, that part of the fan base didn’t go away. They were louder than the ones praising her engineering choices. Some even said they missed her, not for her skills, but for the way she lit up the screen. That’s the kind of attention that turns professionals into distractions. And it wasn’t fair.

She was out there in the dirt while some folks were treating her like a pinup. It was gross and it completely missed the point.

Even with all of that, there’s no taking away the impact she had during her time on the show. When she was on site, things moved. Heavy equipment was used the right way. Complicated digs were handled with a kind of calm confidence.

Whether that was her training, her team, or just experience doesn’t really matter. What matters is that she was effective. She helped them drill deeper than they had ever gone before.

That drilling wasn’t just about making holes. It was about cutting through centuries of hard-packed mystery.

The dig is at 95 ft. Mhm. Right on. So about 3 ft away from that target area. First of the first of many. Yes.

The island isn’t some flat stretch of land. It’s a mess of tunnels, voids, booby traps, and maybe even treasure. Every inch mattered. One wrong move and the whole dig could turn into a mud bath.

She and her team helped keep it from turning into a disaster. She left the drilling site, but something bigger was coming, and it wasn’t treasure.

The real treasure of Oak Island.