Soon, more than 17,000 people will be on the payroll. Many associates praise Trump's style as entrepreneurial and inspiring, some find it overbearing and overwhelming, and a few say it can't survive the empire's phenomenal growth.
Executives say Trump gives them plenty of room to maneuver, but he personally signs hundreds of checks a week, reviews about 100 documents, often phones the same people that his managers will be calling that day and repeatedly quizzes the managers about details of projects. Trump keeps a close eye on the executives, echoing a hands-on management style that his father displayed as a builder, owner and manager of thousands of rent-controlled apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. Freeman and casino-hotel chief executive Stephen Hyde, topping $1 million.
Most of them earn six-figure annual salaries, with a few, including executive vice president Harvey I. Although the casino-hotels in Atlantic City and the Trump Shuttle have their own corporate structures, the organization's executive team is surprisingly small. "That's why the ad was so mean," a Trump adviser said. Sprague, the Trump executive vice president who is criticized by associates as antagonistic, co-wrote Trump's controversial "death penalty" newspaper ad - saying muggers and murderers should be hated and made to suffer rather than psychoanalyzed - after a woman jogger was attacked in Central Park in April. He totally absorbs you." The touch of Trump's managers and advisers often is invisible to the public but nonetheless helps shape his image and empire. "You become very single-minded," she said. Sunshine left after a fierce dispute, becoming the only top executive to leave the organization and not return. Sunshine, a developer who worked with Trump for a dozen years. "He finds talented people, and he brings out the best in them and also the worst," said Louise M. According to many of his executives, Trump's cult of personality - more than anything he learned at the Wharton School of Business - is key to the success and style of the organization. She supervises the screening of thousands of letters and phone calls each week - including offers of oil wells, marriage, wineries in Portugal, a sheep farm in New Zealand and requests for money. Foerderer is Trump's scheduler, press handler, social coordinator, sounding board and confidential critic. "They're very dedicated to showing me that they can do it." Crucial to the mix is Trump's executive assistant, Norma Foerderer, a former foreign-service aide in Tunisia and Uganda, who calms him down, pumps him up and edits his anger. "I have found in many cases are more effective than a man would be," Trump said. It includes his wife, Ivana, who is president of the Plaza Hotel, and three other very strong-willed women, among them one of the few female construction supervisors in the industry. The Trump Organization, which began in the early 1970s but has grown rapidly since 1980, includes his patient younger brother, who terms himself the "plow horse" of the team a shrewd and cautious negotiator whose previous employer was wildly successful before its fortunes plunged and two former city commissioners with valuable contacts in government and law. They protect him from the most far-fetched of ideas and prevent some plans from crashing in flames. They help turn Trump's visions and deals into reality and perpetuate an image that admirers see as personifying the American Dream and critics see as a Capitalist Nightmare. Although they credit him for most ideas, the team members have helped him create and operate a remarkably successful and diverse $3 billion-plus empire - ranging from casino-hotels, condominium towers and an airline to a bicycle race, a best-selling book and a board game.
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He knows what makes them tick, how to motivate and manipulate them, and what they can and can't do well. Although he often appears to rank among the most brash and egomaniacal of executives - a virtual one-man show - the flamboyant deal maker depends heavily on a hand-picked team of key advisers and managers, associates say. "For someone like you to do that might break your spirit, and I don't want to do anything to break that." The approach was the essence of Trump the Manager. "No, no, I don't want you to do that," Trump insisted to the hard-driving Sprague, who sells his condominiums and often plays the role of hatchet man. When Trump phoned her office, Sprague explained that a close friend had died, and vowed to apologize for her outburst at the next meeting. Suddenly, Blanche Sprague, the most fiery of Trump's executives, erupted at her boss - cursing him and storming out of the room, leaving the others stunned. NEW YORK - Two dozen of Donald Trump's top advisers were seated around a conference table on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, debating strategy for a multibillion-dollar development project.
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