Cherryl Brooks The poor shop girl who mistakenly idolizes James Taggart and marries him, Cherryl Brooks is a hero worshipper. She admires achievement and the individuals who attain it. Cherryl leaves the slum neighborhood in which she was raised to come to New York City to advance her career. Because of her ambition and her hero worship (her virtues), James Taggart seeks to destroy her. He is powerless to destroy Dagny, Francisco, Rearden, and the others, so he wreaks his hatred of the good on Cherryl.
The Wet Nurse The Wet Nurse is the young bureaucrat just out of college whom the government assigns as a spy to Rearden's mills. Despite being taught nothing but moral relativism by his teachers, the boy is sufficiently honest to recognize Rearden's moral stature and the looters' evil. He grows into a legitimate hero worshipper like Cherryl and, similarly, is destroyed by the looters.
Tom Colby The head of the union of Rearden steelworkers, Tom Colby recognizes that there is no necessary conflict of interest between employer and employees. Rearden demands and gets the most efficient labor force in the world, for which he pays wages significantly above union scale. Colby, a diligent worker, recognizes that Rearden is his ally, not a "class enemy."
Gwen Ives Gwen Ives is Rearden's secretary. She's ruthlessly efficient in her work and intensely loyal to Rearden and his mills. Her commitment to justice is shown when she cries at the news that Rearden has been robbed of his ore mines by the passage of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. When Rearden retires and disappears, she too leaves the firm.
James Taggart Dagny's older brother and the President of Taggart Transcontinental, Jim is a "looter" — a businessman who seeks gain not by productive work but by political connections. The difference between Dagny and her brother is shown in their reactions to Dan Conway's Phoenix-Durango Railroad. They both want to put the competitor out of business. Dagny wishes to do so by building Taggart's Rio Norte Line into a more efficient road, whereas Jim seeks to destroy the Phoenix-Durango by political decree. Where Dagny stands for production, Jim stands for force. Jim is motivated by his hatred of good men and his desire to kill such individuals as Dagny, Rearden, Francisco, and Galt.
