TORONTO – Six people were inducted into the Canadian Telecom Hall of Fame at a gala dinner at The Carlu in Toronto Monday evening.
The event drew a large number of senior telecom folks and other key industry figures such as Industry Canada’s Michael Binder, the CRTC’s Len Katz, Nortel board member and former Industry Canada Minister John Manley, Persona Communications president and CEO Dean MacDonald, former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, and assorted others.
Inducted were Rogers Communications CEO Edward S. "Ted" Rogers (accepting on-screen in the photo below) and his pioneering father E.S. Rogers Sr., telecom lawyer Ernest Saunders, early regulatory mind Francis Dapper, inventor Donald Hings and former Wightman Telecom president Leila Wightman. All except Ted were inducted posthumously.
"Ted is Canada’s premiere entrepreneur," said former Rogers executive Francis Fox, now of Fasken Martineau.
The special recognition award went to Nortel’s Digital World, the first end-to-end digital telecom system developed. Announced in 1976, the technology that Nortel and its partner, Bell-Northern Research developed went on to become a global standard. Nortel’s DMS switches are used everywhere.
Perhaps the most inspiring story of the night came from Paul Wightman, Leila’s grandson, who still runs the Clifford, Ont.-based (north of Kitchener) independent telco.
When her husband Benjamin died suddenly in 1948, Leila was left with four children and a decision: what to do with the company her husband’s father founded in 1908. At a time when the business world wasn’t very friendly towards women, Leila promised she would keep the company going, no matter what it took, said her grandson Paul, now the company’s president, in an emotional address to invitees.
Even as president and owner through the 1950s and ’60s, Leila would often work the night shift on the switchboard.
"Any other person might have made a different decision," said Paul in his speech. "She didn’t want to let the fact she was a woman stand in the way… she vowed she would never sell it and it would succeed no matter what."
Pictured are, from left, telecom consultant Lis Angus, Paul Wightman, Blair Wightman, and Telecom Hall founder Lorne Abugov of Osler’s.
