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Donald J. Trump, president of the Trump Organization, New York City, will deliver the main address at the 120th starting exercise of Lehigh University on June 5 in Stabler Arena. Trump, known for his New York City and Atlantic City buildings, will also be awarded an honorary doctorate in law.
Trump said his brother was a 1960 Lehigh graduate, late Frederick C. Trump Jr. The ceremonies are expected to be attended by an audience of 7,000 graduates, faculty and staff, parents and invited relatives and friends. Trump, a graduate of Wharton School of Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, is a major participant in the real estate market in New York.
His holdings include Trump Tower, a 68-story skyscraper of $200 million, Trump Plaza, a luxury cooperative, and the Grand Hyatt Hotel, a 1,500-room facility adjacent to the Grand Central Terminal and connected to it. Trump Parc, a 350-unit condominium near Central Park, is being built. Trump also owns a large share of Alexander’s Inc., a city, Long Island and New Jersey retail operation.
Trump recently undertook a project to complete the $12 million cost of Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park, which the city has been building for over six years. He completed the rink for $3 million in four months. Trump has two hotels in Atlantic City, the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and the Castle Hotel and Casino of Trump.
Earlier this year, Resorts International Inc., which already operates Resorts I, acquired voting control. A hotel called the Taj Mahal is under construction. The acquisition of resorts also includes three hotels in the Bahamas on Paradise Island. Trump, a native of New York City, servedas co-chairman of the New York Vietnam Memorial Fund and is a founding member of the St. John the Divine Cathedral Completion Committee. Trump is a special adviser to the Physical Fitness and Sports Council of the President.
He received the Wharton Entrepreneurial Club’s first Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1984 and was elected to the Wharton Hall of Fame. He serves as director of the Fred C. Trump Foundation and was recently appointed president of the New York Citizens Committee for the 78th NAACP Annual Convention.
The speaker’s announcement was made by Lehigh President Peter Likins and this year’s senior class president Jeffrey D. Enslin. The senior class at Lehigh works with the administration to select a beginning speaker. “Lehigh is very happy to have Donald Trump as the speaker at the beginning,” Likins said. “He’s a man of great imagination, courage and vision, and I’m sure our graduates will eagerly receive his message.”
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In a move that City Hall insiders say is calculated to embarrass Mayor Koch, Donald Trump agreed to speak here at the NAACP meeting next month, and help throw a pre-convention Party.
Last year, after Koch’s office tried halfheartedly to keep the civil rights organization in New York, a bitter NAACP moved its headquarters to Baltimore.
Now, an insider says, Trump will use the convention to show that he is more interested in keeping people in the city than the mayor. Trump refused to say if his role in the convention has anything to do with his feud with the mayor.
Donald Trump also once donated to Al Sharpton’s organization to help inner city youth.