Andy McLean is one lucky apprentice.
The Coast writer spent this fall collaborating on a real estate investment book with George H. Ross, top business and legal adviser to billionaire Donald Trump and co-star of Trump's hit TV show "The Apprentice."
Fortunately, McLean was never called in front of Trump and told "you're fired" the way contestants are on "The Apprentice." He may have come close, though.
In late September, McLean unintentionally mimicked the show's contestants by flying to New York City, meeting the silver-haired Ross in a Trump Tower boardroom and accepting a seemingly impossible task: Help Ross complete his 256-page book "Trump Strategies For Real Estate" in a scant two and a half months.
"I'm used to doing something half that size in six months," McLean said in a recent interview at his Gulfport home.
McLean, the author of 12 books about real estate, had never collaborated on a book before. His editors at New York publisher John Wiley & Sons convinced him to try.
McLean served his de facto apprenticeship well, completing his writing assignment two days before deadline and earning a bonus in the process.
In the book, scheduled for release in March, Ross tells ordinary investors how to put Trump's legendary negotiation and management skills to work in their own real estate ventures.
Ross is an expert on the subject, having advised Trump on many of his most famous developments, including the Trump Tower office building and Trump World Tower condominiums in Manhattan, and the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. "Trump Strategies" employs these properties as case studies.
McLean will use "Trump Strategies" as a textbook when he teaches a four-week course on real estate investing at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College's Jefferson Davis campus in Gulfport, beginning March 22. The course will cost $95, including the $24.95 price of the book.
For more information, phone MGCCC Continuing Education at 896-2535.