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Growing up in a modest house located in a small lot on New York's Long Island didn't exactly make author Gary D. Rappaport a likely candidate to become a successful entrepreneurial owner of multimillion dollar shopping centers and mixed-use properties. But this self-made man attributes his success to a handful of qualities he picked up from his father, among which were his entrepreneurial spirit, optimism, problem-solving, integrity, people skills, and in no small way, to his numbers skills. From delivering newspapers door-to-door as a boy to building single-family homes to sell to baby boomers while right out of college to just a few years later starting his own company to purchase shopping centers and redevelop them, Mr. Rappaport's career has been extremely financially rewarding for him as well as for the investors he handpicked along the way, mostly friends and family members.