Trump, Donald

▪ 2005

      A master of the lucrative business deal and of unabashed self-promotion, real-estate baron Donald Trump scored a media coup in 2004 when he starred in the hit reality-TV show The Apprentice, which in its first season soared to the top of the ratings and attracted more than 40 million viewers in its two-hour finale. During the daunting boardroom scenes at the end of each weekly program, Trump crushed the aspirations of one candidate by exclaiming “You're fired!,” which soon became a popular national catchphrase. The tables were turned on Trump, however, when his publicly traded company Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and he was forced to relinquish his role as CEO. He also lost his majority stake in the company.

      Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, N.Y. At an early age he showed an interest in his father's successful real-estate business and often accompanied him on inspections to construction sites. Boisterous and assertive as a youth, Trump was enrolled in a New York military academy, where he excelled under the disciplinary environment and exhibited his leadership skills. He attended Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y., for a short time before enrolling at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance, where, according to a friend, “Donald always used to talk about changing the Manhattan skyline.” After graduating from Wharton in 1968, Trump returned to New York to work with his father at the Trump Organization. After just five years, Trump's business deals had helped to raise the organization's assets by 500%.

      Although his father influenced his career, Trump's ultimate hero was real-estate mogul William Zeckendorf, who built highly extravagant residences for the wealthy and after whom the young developer patterned his own negotiations. Trump's first major independent deal, despite his father's initial apprehension, was the purchase of the unsuccessful Commodore Hotel in 1975; reopened as the Grand Hyatt in 1980, it was worth an estimated $300 million in just seven years. “The Donald” expanded his empire to include the fabulous Trump Tower and Trump Parc in Manhattan, the Trump Plaza, and more than 25,000 rental and co-op apartment units in New York City. The Trump name was also associated with golf courses and casino-hotels, such as the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J. In 2002 his plans were approved to construct the luxurious Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, which upon completion would stand as the city's fourth tallest building.

      Despite his recent financial difficulties and two well-publicized divorces, by 2004 Trump had accrued a net worth estimated by Forbes business magazine to be $2.5 billion. In June 2004 Trump began hosting a 90-second radio commentary program called Trumped!, and in the fall he launched his own line of men's clothing and introduced his second board game called Trump, the Game. His newest book was titled Think like a Billionaire (2004).

Barbara A. Schreiber

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