Trump’s winner visits Pitt

Donald Trump’s latest apprentice visited Pittsburgh this past weekend to give students advice… Donald Trump’s latest apprentice visited Pittsburgh this past weekend to give students advice on succeeding in the business world.

The Roberto Clemente Minority Business Association hosted Randal Pinkett Saturday as the keynote speaker in the Minorities in Pittsburgh Conference 2006 at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association.

Pitt’s Black Action Society and PNC Bank also sponsored the event.

A variety of workshops, networking and business luncheons, including a career fair, were held during the two-day span of the conference.

As the 2005 winner of NBC’s reality television show “The Apprentice,” Pinkett also heads a multimillion dollar management, technology and policy consulting firm as the co-founder, president and CEO.

Pinkett said that he has been clear with Trump that he wants to learn as much as he can from him and then bring this experience back to his own company.

He also stressed that minorities need to move together as a group for collective success, saying that minorities need to found more institutions “that will last long after we die.”

He named PNC Bank, Ernst and Young and the NAACP as examples.

Pinkett said that there is a lot of income, but not wealth, in the minority community. He compared it to a person having a nice car, but not being able to afford to move out of his parents’ house.

In 2006, according to Pinkett, black people and Latinos in the United States will earn $1 trillion.

He said that they can work together to turn their individual power into collective power by networking and supporting each other.

A method of working together that Pinkett suggested involves the “thronged approach,” wherein one group climbs the corporate ladder and the other group becomes entrepreneurs.

Pinkett emphasized the idea of strength in numbers.

“If you think your time on campus is just an academic exercise, then you better recognize,” he said.

Pinkett used an example from the movie “Soul Food” to demonstrate his concept of working together. He said that one character in the movie, Big Mama, used the phrase “One finger pointing has no impact, many fingers pointing makes a mighty blow.”

“Multi-national companies work together, so we can too at an individual level,” Pinkett said.

“I am extremely proud of the leadership of [The Roberto Clemente Minority Business Association],” Pinkett said. “There is no question to me that the people here in this room will be successful.”

He said that the RCMBA serves as a democratic model of how groups must work together.

“Never lose or sell your soul in the course of becoming successful in business,” Pinkett said.