Ted Rogers the cell to cell caller
Edward S. Rogers, Order of Canada
CEO and President of Rogers Communications Inc
Ted Rogers standing next to my Aunt Isabelle in 1964 having a smoke. He probably lit up off the same match that got my Aunt's cigarette going. My aunt sold advertising spots for radio stations and no doubt this was one of those run-of-the-mill luncheons that brought sales teams together with radio owners.
The radio station in question in the photo is, as the caption says, CHFI. Two years before that shared cigarette (and, if my aunt was true to character, engaging and hilarious encounter) CHFI was JUST getting off the ground.
According to the history section of Rogers' web site, Ted Rogers' career as a communications giant began while he was still an articling student at Tory, Tory, DesLauriers & Binnington (having just graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School, where, of course, I currently teach). That's when he purchased Canada's first FM station CHFI-FM in 1962.
Then he shared a cigarette with my Aunt Isabelle at an air time sales luncheon at the Seaway Hotel (in Montreal, I'm guessing, as that's where my Aunt lived her whole life). And the rest is history.
I sent Ted Rogers this photo on December 18, 2005 along with the letter he requested that outlined the costs of my ordeal with one of his corporations.