His leadership team at Liberty Property Trust, the Malvern real estate investment trust he heads, has for the most part been together for a long time. Many who have worked with Rouse on civic projects are also fiercely loyal to him. Open to ideas William Hankowsky, for example, worked with Rouse on major civic projects while he was president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., the city's economic development agency. Now Hankowsky is a top executive at Rouse's company. He's a terrific guy to work for.
Former employees remain loyal.
He's a great educator, great mentor, great motivator. He knows that things take time. He is very understanding . In the 1980s, after a brutal public fight, Rouse built the city's tallest building, One Liberty Place, breaking the long-standing rule that no building could rise higher than the statue of the city's founder, William Penn, atop City Hall. But he won't accept credit for changing the city's skyline and, perhaps, its image of itself.