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Dec 02, 2008 07:14 AM
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Moira Welsh
Staff Reporter

His business card read, "Ted Rogers, Senior Salesperson."

It could have easily said, Electronic Visionary, Sleepless CEO or Relentless Entrepreneur, for Rogers, with his trademark determination, became Canada's most successful businessmen, transforming his name into a nation-wide brand that signified high-speed Internet, cellular telephones and major league baseball.

Rogers, who was being treated for an ongoing heart condition, died at his home in Toronto, according to a statement released by his company this morning. He was 75.

His hunger for success, combined with an ability to envision technological change years before his competitors (and a tolerance for debt) lifted his business from one fledgling radio station into a $25 billion Canadian institution.

Turning Rogers Communications Inc. into a blue chip empire was his greatest ambition. The fact that he lived through a heart condition, aneurysms and melanoma to see it happen must have made the accomplishment particularly sweet.

He accomplished this against the enduring backdrop of a ticking clock: An ambition hastened by his father's early death, a lifetime of precarious health and an inability to slow his impatient intellect for the pace of others.

He was as happy to talk with his truck drivers as with his executives, but there is one point that every one held true: if you worked for Ted Rogers, you had better be on your game.

John Tory is the Ontario Progressive Conservative party leader. He once ran RCI's cable division and was well acquainted with Rogers' mental dexterity.

"He could sit at one meeting and he could have a learned, intelligent discussion about a legal issue, then he could move on and have a learned discussion about a tax issue, and then if it happened to go around the table and there was an engineering issues with the company, he could discuss and debate it intelligently and then move on to a financial issue," said Tory.

Like all Rogers executives, Tory was often awakened at 3 a.m. by a ringing telephone. It was a common practice, calling his executives with grand ideas, or with a reminder of a task not accomplished, taken from the memos kept on each executive that Rogers called his "tickle files."

"In later years, I think he realized that the phone call at two o'clock in the morning were not always widely appreciated," Tory recalled. "He would say, 'Did I wake you up?' And I'd say, 'No, the phone did.' "

Tory said when he started working for Rogers as a young man, he would arrive at what was then a tiny office at 4 a.m. and see his boss walking out, having just finished his workday. Rogers, he said, felt that if he was working, so were his managers, no matter what the hour. In later years, that changed.

"The great mellowing of Ted wasn't that he didn't sit at his desk at quarter to four in the morning, it was that he would leave a voicemail instead of contacting you directly.

"We laugh about it but at the end of the day we ask what has this man accomplished? We sort of say, 'Wow it is pretty incredible.' It proves a lot of things; it proves if you are relentless and work hard, you can do anything."

Rogers was born on May 27, 1933, a small sickly son for Velma and Edward Rogers. In his autobiography, Relentless, written with business consultant Robert Brehl, Rogers said in his first year of life he lost partial sight in his right eye due to infant celiac disorder, which also played havoc with his digestive system.

"I was a skinny little fellow, but I was a fighter," he wrote.

Rogers described his father as a brilliant, pioneering man, who, at the age of 24, invented the alternating current radio tube. It allowed people to plug their radios into the wall socket instead of bulk batteries, the book said.

Edward Sr. manufactured new small radios that revolutionized the industry. Then he started the radio station CFRB (Canada's First Rogers Batteryless) which, Rogers wrote, "was another brilliant stroke" because he could use the station's programming to increase the demand for more radio sets. It was an early form of the business convergence that Rogers later embraced.

On May 4, 1939, as his father's business was beginning to prosper, Edward Sr. suffered an aneurysm and a haemorrhaged ulcer. He died two days later at the age of 38. Rogers was a few days shy of his sixth birthday.

The family received some money from the sale of his father's business, but Rogers always believed "my father's estate got screwed." It burned him, and fuelled his drive.

He attended boarding school where was bullied by students because of his size and later boarded at Upper Canada College in Toronto. It was here, in 1949 and 1950, where he recognized there was truth to the adage, "like father, like son."

He installed a cable in his room, attached to a hidden rooftop antenna, and connected it to a television set. "Viewers were invited to gather around, for a small fee, to watch the marvels of television."

He wrote, "It dawned on me that I shared my father's two gifts, his passion for electronics and business acumen."

It didn't take long before Rogers put both to good use.

Time, he wrote, is "one commodity I think about a lot." His father's death and his own ill health were constant reminders that for some, life is very short, so the goal became clear: use your time wisely.

Rogers made daily lists of things to do, prioritizing his time, keeping his notes in a pocket Daytimer. He attended University of Toronto, and graduated with a law degree from Osgoode Law School at York University.

Rogers joined the Toronto Young Conservatives and became a strong supporter of John Diefenbaker, future Prime Minister. He found time to woo and marry a young woman named Loretta Robinson, and together they would have four children, Lisa, Edward, Melinda and Martha. People were always captivated by the family's unpretentious ways.

Rogers said in his book that his mother wanted him to re-establish the Rogers name in broadcasting. In 1960, while articling at Bay St. law firm Torys, (founded by John Tory's grandfather) he bought radio station CHFI for $85,000, pioneering FM radio.

By 1967, he envisioned a new future - cable television. He started Rogers Cable T.V. Ltd., ignoring the naysayers who predicted its imminent demise. He once said, "They laughed at me when I said cable TV would be a big thing in Toronto. They said, 'Who needs it in Toronto?' "

Tory met Rogers when he was a teenager. He recalls watching the older man give a speech describing his business's future, talking of ideas that made some think he was a visionary and others, just wonder.

"When I was maybe 20 I invited him to come and address a political convention. It was maybe 30 years ago. He came and gave a speech that talked about how we would all, in future years, be carrying around little pocket-sized phones that would be able to receive video programming.

"The people in the room sort of thought, maybe this guy was reading too may Dick Tracy books and was sort of a mad scientist of some kind. But, sure enough, here we are, 30 years later and what do we have? Little pocket cell phones that you can carry around and get video programming, and much more."

As Rogers's business expanded, so did his debt. Many times, he came close to bankruptcy, re-mortgaging his Toronto home to make ends meet. Rogers often admitted that he didn't always succeed.

In the mid 1990s, the company's minority ownership of Unitel ultimately cost it $500 million. As Rogers wrote in Relentless, "Unitel will always stick in my craw as the worst business disaster of my life. Having said that, every entrepreneur has to learn new tricks. At 60, I certainly did - proving you can teach an old dog new tricks."

He called the $3.1-billion acquisition of Maclean Hunter Ltd. in the mid-1990s one of "the three most difficult business deals of my life." (The others involved obtaining the 680 AM radio frequency and taking over Canadian Cable systems.)

The glory of Rogers's takeover of the MacLean Hunter media giant turned sour when, as he wrote, Bay St. types started referring to his company with the debt-word. "It really started to tick me off, but what could I do? As always, during tough times, I simply worked harder. And these were tough times, but not the toughest."

By 2000, Rogers moved into the sports business, buying the Toronto Blue Jays and the SkyDome, which he renamed the Rogers Centre. That move, he said, branded the company in Toronto as a "good corporate citizen."

In the last few years, Rogers spent more time working on a company succession plan, recognizing that his biggest challenge has been his heart. For years he had been in and out of hospitals for his heart condition, as well as aneurysms, melanoma and glaucoma.

Near the end of his book, Rogers said his daughter, Lisa, once told him, "The best way to describe you is in racetrack terms. You're not the horse people would bet on, yet you find ways to win, over and over again."

He wasn't the strongest kid, or the student with the highest grades but Rogers's combined electronics acumen inherited from Edward Sr. with an unwavering belief in good old-fashioned gumption.

"If my life has a lesson for others," he wrote, "I think it is that everyone has a shot. Don't follow your dream; live it. No matter what it is you want, take your best shot. Be passionate, work hard, maybe harder than you've ever dreamt, but the opportunity is there."



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Dec 02, 2008 07:14 AM
Be the first to comment on this article...
Moira Welsh
Staff Reporter

His business card read, "Ted Rogers, Senior Salesperson."

It could have easily said, Electronic Visionary, Sleepless CEO or Relentless Entrepreneur, for Rogers, with his trademark determination, became Canada's most successful businessmen, transforming his name into a nation-wide brand that signified high-speed Internet, cellular telephones and major league baseball.

Rogers, who was being treated for an ongoing heart condition, died at his home in Toronto, according to a statement released by his company this morning. He was 75.

His hunger for success, combined with an ability to envision technological change years before his competitors (and a tolerance for debt) lifted his business from one fledgling radio station into a $25 billion Canadian institution.

Turning Rogers Communications Inc. into a blue chip empire was his greatest ambition. The fact that he lived through a heart condition, aneurysms and melanoma to see it happen must have made the accomplishment particularly sweet.

He accomplished this against the enduring backdrop of a ticking clock: An ambition hastened by his father's early death, a lifetime of precarious health and an inability to slow his impatient intellect for the pace of others.

He was as happy to talk with his truck drivers as with his executives, but there is one point that every one held true: if you worked for Ted Rogers, you had better be on your game.

John Tory is the Ontario Progressive Conservative party leader. He once ran RCI's cable division and was well acquainted with Rogers' mental dexterity.

"He could sit at one meeting and he could have a learned, intelligent discussion about a legal issue, then he could move on and have a learned discussion about a tax issue, and then if it happened to go around the table and there was an engineering issues with the company, he could discuss and debate it intelligently and then move on to a financial issue," said Tory.

Like all Rogers executives, Tory was often awakened at 3 a.m. by a ringing telephone. It was a common practice, calling his executives with grand ideas, or with a reminder of a task not accomplished, taken from the memos kept on each executive that Rogers called his "tickle files."

"In later years, I think he realized that the phone call at two o'clock in the morning were not always widely appreciated," Tory recalled. "He would say, 'Did I wake you up?' And I'd say, 'No, the phone did.' "

Tory said when he started working for Rogers as a young man, he would arrive at what was then a tiny office at 4 a.m. and see his boss walking out, having just finished his workday. Rogers, he said, felt that if he was working, so were his managers, no matter what the hour. In later years, that changed.

"The great mellowing of Ted wasn't that he didn't sit at his desk at quarter to four in the morning, it was that he would leave a voicemail instead of contacting you directly.

"We laugh about it but at the end of the day we ask what has this man accomplished? We sort of say, 'Wow it is pretty incredible.' It proves a lot of things; it proves if you are relentless and work hard, you can do anything."

Rogers was born on May 27, 1933, a small sickly son for Velma and Edward Rogers. In his autobiography, Relentless, written with business consultant Robert Brehl, Rogers said in his first year of life he lost partial sight in his right eye due to infant celiac disorder, which also played havoc with his digestive system.

"I was a skinny little fellow, but I was a fighter," he wrote.

Rogers described his father as a brilliant, pioneering man, who, at the age of 24, invented the alternating current radio tube. It allowed people to plug their radios into the wall socket instead of bulk batteries, the book said.

Edward Sr. manufactured new small radios that revolutionized the industry. Then he started the radio station CFRB (Canada's First Rogers Batteryless) which, Rogers wrote, "was another brilliant stroke" because he could use the station's programming to increase the demand for more radio sets. It was an early form of the business convergence that Rogers later embraced.

On May 4, 1939, as his father's business was beginning to prosper, Edward Sr. suffered an aneurysm and a haemorrhaged ulcer. He died two days later at the age of 38. Rogers was a few days shy of his sixth birthday.

The family received some money from the sale of his father's business, but Rogers always believed "my father's estate got screwed." It burned him, and fuelled his drive.

He attended boarding school where was bullied by students because of his size and later boarded at Upper Canada College in Toronto. It was here, in 1949 and 1950, where he recognized there was truth to the adage, "like father, like son."

He installed a cable in his room, attached to a hidden rooftop antenna, and connected it to a television set. "Viewers were invited to gather around, for a small fee, to watch the marvels of television."

He wrote, "It dawned on me that I shared my father's two gifts, his passion for electronics and business acumen."

It didn't take long before Rogers put both to good use.

Time, he wrote, is "one commodity I think about a lot." His father's death and his own ill health were constant reminders that for some, life is very short, so the goal became clear: use your time wisely.

Rogers made daily lists of things to do, prioritizing his time, keeping his notes in a pocket Daytimer. He attended University of Toronto, and graduated with a law degree from Osgoode Law School at York University.

Rogers joined the Toronto Young Conservatives and became a strong supporter of John Diefenbaker, future Prime Minister. He found time to woo and marry a young woman named Loretta Robinson, and together they would have four children, Lisa, Edward, Melinda and Martha. People were always captivated by the family's unpretentious ways.

Rogers said in his book that his mother wanted him to re-establish the Rogers name in broadcasting. In 1960, while articling at Bay St. law firm Torys, (founded by John Tory's grandfather) he bought radio station CHFI for $85,000, pioneering FM radio.

By 1967, he envisioned a new future - cable television. He started Rogers Cable T.V. Ltd., ignoring the naysayers who predicted its imminent demise. He once said, "They laughed at me when I said cable TV would be a big thing in Toronto. They said, 'Who needs it in Toronto?' "

Tory met Rogers when he was a teenager. He recalls watching the older man give a speech describing his business's future, talking of ideas that made some think he was a visionary and others, just wonder.

"When I was maybe 20 I invited him to come and address a political convention. It was maybe 30 years ago. He came and gave a speech that talked about how we would all, in future years, be carrying around little pocket-sized phones that would be able to receive video programming.

"The people in the room sort of thought, maybe this guy was reading too may Dick Tracy books and was sort of a mad scientist of some kind. But, sure enough, here we are, 30 years later and what do we have? Little pocket cell phones that you can carry around and get video programming, and much more."

As Rogers's business expanded, so did his debt. Many times, he came close to bankruptcy, re-mortgaging his Toronto home to make ends meet. Rogers often admitted that he didn't always succeed.

In the mid 1990s, the company's minority ownership of Unitel ultimately cost it $500 million. As Rogers wrote in Relentless, "Unitel will always stick in my craw as the worst business disaster of my life. Having said that, every entrepreneur has to learn new tricks. At 60, I certainly did - proving you can teach an old dog new tricks."

He called the $3.1-billion acquisition of Maclean Hunter Ltd. in the mid-1990s one of "the three most difficult business deals of my life." (The others involved obtaining the 680 AM radio frequency and taking over Canadian Cable systems.)

The glory of Rogers's takeover of the MacLean Hunter media giant turned sour when, as he wrote, Bay St. types started referring to his company with the debt-word. "It really started to tick me off, but what could I do? As always, during tough times, I simply worked harder. And these were tough times, but not the toughest."

By 2000, Rogers moved into the sports business, buying the Toronto Blue Jays and the SkyDome, which he renamed the Rogers Centre. That move, he said, branded the company in Toronto as a "good corporate citizen."

In the last few years, Rogers spent more time working on a company succession plan, recognizing that his biggest challenge has been his heart. For years he had been in and out of hospitals for his heart condition, as well as aneurysms, melanoma and glaucoma.

Near the end of his book, Rogers said his daughter, Lisa, once told him, "The best way to describe you is in racetrack terms. You're not the horse people would bet on, yet you find ways to win, over and over again."

He wasn't the strongest kid, or the student with the highest grades but Rogers's combined electronics acumen inherited from Edward Sr. with an unwavering belief in good old-fashioned gumption.

"If my life has a lesson for others," he wrote, "I think it is that everyone has a shot. Don't follow your dream; live it. No matter what it is you want, take your best shot. Be passionate, work hard, maybe harder than you've ever dreamt, but the opportunity is there."



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