Surveillance will be handled entirely on site 24x7, whereas fire systems will be monitored off site.

“It’s pretty tight security, which makes it easier when you’re handling VIPs, whether it’s government delegations or you’re handling motorcades. It makes it easier because you’ve got someone in the control room monitoring the property.”

The other major item on Manos’s plate is creating the security policies that will allow the building to function effectively when it inevitably plays host to celebrities and dignitaries. “That ties up a lot of my time.”

Right now, Manos is operating in what he calls the honeymoon period. The work will continue to ramp up as the last of the construction is completed and the hotel gets ready for its grand opening.

Manos is used to being busy. He essentially worked two full-time security jobs for a period of a year. During the day, he handled security for the building that houses CSIS and at night, he acted as security director for the Hazelton, a five-star hotel in Toronto’s tony Yorkville area — an experience that surely stood in his favour when Trump was looking for its own security director.

Manos worked at the CSIS building from 7 a.m. till 3 p.m., then switched hats and worked at the Hazelton from 4:00 p.m. till midnight. “I did that every single day for a year. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it doesn’t make any difference how many hours you’re doing it for because you’re enjoying it. At a certain point, it’s not really work.”

The Hazelton opened in summer 2007, in time for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September. Manos joined just prior to that and was immediately asked for an operational plan that would allow the hotel to cater to celebrities.

“I had to learn the building and where everything is, then create the policies and procedures. It doesn’t have to be a binder of 500 pages, but you have to put something together. That was really hitting the ground running.”

Manos joined Trump with a little more breathing room and the experience of setting up security during the construction phase has given him an ideal perspective on building a program from the ground up.

“The advantage of being involved in a hotel during the construction phase is you learn a great deal about the role building structure plays in safety,” says Manos. “You really have to partner up with engineering because they’re the ones that have a good knowledge of the facility. There’s a lot of things that you may find out after construction, and there’s a lot of things that you’ll never see. But if you’re partnered and working together and you want to know, from a security perspective, about the back-up generators (for example), the only way to find that out is to ask the engineer.”

Manos has also received advice and support from his counterparts at the other Trump hotels. The security director at Trump Chicago, which opened in 2008, has been particularly helpful, he says.

“It’s not a real secret,” says Manos, “but some of the growing pains that you go through when you’re opening a new property may be the same. You want to know how to handle it because it also saves you time if you have the heads up. You don’t want to spin your wheels when you can just ask for help.”

Manos hasn’t encountered Donald Trump yet, but his son Donald Trump Jr. did stop by the Toronto hotel to check on progress. “He came in and loved what he saw,” says Manos, “which is good, because it means we’re all doing a good job.”