Wade Hanson stepped up as project manager for what would turn
out to be a disastrous, sinking ship of a project. Hanson felt
sabotaged by his team when asked to design a fashion show for a
shoe company. After delegating tasks to each of his team members,
the project turned into a nightmare when Gene, who volunteered to
emcee, couldn't deliver. The project manager and his emcee
were hired in a double eviction by Donald Trump.
Hanson, who describes himself as being in a slump prior to
The Apprentice, felt he needed this competition to help
him feel challenged once again. We chatted with Hanson about the
awful task, his regrets and Trump's harsh reaction in the
boardroom.
ON GENE AND DAVID'S TASK:
Gene and David were really the only two guys that stepped up and
said they had any experience and were willing to do [the public
speaking task. In fact they were very anxious to do it. Gene had
said he's done something like this in the past. I wasn't going to
pull Gene in the middle of the presentation to Rockport. I
thought that was inappropriate. He'd been working on this speech
all day and I had nobody else that could step in and fill those
shoes at that point. We kind of had to watch the Titanic sink, so
to speak. We really had no choice at that point.
I knew we lost going into [the boardroom]. And I knew that. Gene
was going to get fired and for some reason I had a feeling that
it'd be the two of us on the chopping block. Frankly I thought
David was a liability the whole way, and he acted out. And I
thought that there was a good chance that he could get fired as
well.
ON WHY HE WAS FIRED:
I still to this day am trying to wrap my head around why I was
fired. You're given a limited amount of talent to work with and I
felt I put each person in the right role including David, including
Gene. David did make an ass out of himself as he does in every show
in every task. But ultimately he's still there, I'm not.
ON HIS TEAMMATE DAVID:
David is just immature. He walked off stage. He says things and
does things that's just distracting to the team. He's not a
professional. He's a hot head and he just creates distractions that
get in the way of us winning so.
ON HIS TEAM:
Honestly my team backed me; they didn't really throw me under the
bus. Steuart stood up for me and said that David had asked to be an
emcee; Gene had asked to be an emcee. Everybody defended my
decisions. And put in that situation again I'd make the same
decisions. Gene carries himself well, he's a good guy, he's a good
public speaker and Gene had a bad day. We all have bad days and I
don't fault Gene for that.
ON HIS REGRETS:
My biggest regret for me is I played it too safe. The first few
weeks I kind of thought I'd fly under the radar and let the Davids
of the show come to the surface and play themselves out of the
competition. And I thought I could put my head down and just
execute the tasks and keep moving forward but that didn't show. I
think I left some cards on the table. I think that for me the last
couple of years I've kind of gotten myself into a rut and
this opportunity and this competition has given me the opportunity
to challenge myself to become a little bit more creative,
think outside the box and do things I normally wouldn't do. This is
something so far from what I would even consider participating
in.
ON THE REMAINING CONTESTANTS:
I think there's a couple of women that I feel are stronger
contestants and I don't think there's any of the men that are
left that are any more talented than I am. I just drew the
short straw; there's not a man on the team that would have won that
task, absolutely not.I always thought from the get-go that Brandy
was strong. I think that she carries herself very well. She stood
out in this particular task as an emcee. I think Liza
has done fairly well as - she's taken a lot of criticism. So I
thought those two were strong from the women's side.
ON HOW HE HANDLED HIS TEAMMATES:
I did check on Gene throughout the day. I checked on everybody on
my team throughout the day to make sure that everybody was on task.
And Gene's a grown man and he told me that he was comfortable, he
had everything he needed and he was prepared. I can't second guess
a guy that's in that position It almost felt like I was being
sabotaged; it almost felt like he just went up there and just blew
it.
I had the script pages sent over to me by the Rockport executives
and I handed the script pages to Gene and asked him to customize
them to his readability. And Gene throughout the day I checked in
on him and in fact if you watched the show you'll see me checking
in on him and him saying that he's okay and he's got it. So again I
had no reason to believe that Gene wasn't going to execute the
task.
ON DONALD TRUMP'S REACTION IN THE
BOARDROOM:
Oh I think it was justified. We did a poor job and I apologized to
Mr. Trump and I apologized to Rockport; we did a terrible
job. It was embarrassing to be a part of it.
Unfortunately it was on Gene's shoulders and Gene owned up to
it.
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