George A. Fierheller
B.A., LL.D.

Founder, Systems Dimensions Limited
Founding CEO, Cantel Inc.
Former Vice chairman, Rogers Communications Inc.

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George Fierheller, a 1998 inductee into the Industry Builder Wing of the C.I.P.A. Hall of Fame, is a tireless advocate for the information technology industry in Canada and has been one of its most active builders for 40 years.

Fierheller's career was launched even before people began using computers in Canada. He joined IBM's sales division in Toronto as a sales trainee in 1955, just after graduating from the University of Toronto with an honours degree in political science and economics, and before IBM had brought its first commercial computer to Canada. That was the IBM 650, for which Fierheller was given sales responsibility. Later he sold the giant IBM 704, used to design the Avro Arrow, and the IBM 705, bought by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics for conducting the 1961Canadian census, the first time a computer had been used for that purpose.

Managing IBM's federal government business in the 1960s, Fierheller sold a giant System/360 model 65 computer to the Central Data Processing Service Bureau (CEPSB), which the government had set up to serve its departments. Sitting one day in the Colonel By Lounge in the Chateau Laurier, Fierheller and two colleagues, John Russell and Guy Morton, decided they could do a better job at running a service bureau than the government could. They left IBM in 1968 to establish Systems Dimensions Limited, with Fierheller as president.

"We had absolutely nothing," he recalls, "but we sold the government on the idea of using a commercial service and closing CEPSB. We raised $17.5 million through a public offering, which was huge for a concept company. We bought 4.5 acres of land and designed and built a beautiful building, which still stands.

"The computer took two floors of the building. It was a System/360 model 85, the largest IBM machine at that time. I remember Bill Moore, then IBM Canada president, saying he thought I had brought more business to IBM after I left than I had when I was there!"

Systems Dimensions grew internationally until it merged in 1978 with Datacrown. Fierheller was then invited to become president of Premier Cablesystems Ltd. in Vancouver. In 1980 that company merged with another owned by Fierheller's former fraternity brother, Ted Rogers. The merger made Rogers Cablesystems Inc. one of the world's largest cable TV companies. Fierheller became chairman of subsidiary Canadian Cablesystems Ltd. and president of Rogers Cable TV - British Columbia Ltd. Fierheller and Rogers then put together a consortium to pursue a national licence for a mobile cellular telephone service. When they won the licence in December 1983, Fierheller became president and CEO of Cantel Inc. and set about building a telephone company from scratch. It became the largest cellular company in the country.

"I enjoy creating new things," Fierheller says. "I'm still having fun at it. If you don't enjoy what you're doing you probably won't do much of a job at it.

"SDL and Cantel fed a lot of other companies. SHL Systemhouse was a spinoff from SDL. I have found it interesting and a great source of satisfaction to see this proliferation of companies all across Canada founded by people who used to be with companies that I started."

Fierheller retired from Cantel in 1993 and became Vice Chairman of Rogers Cablesystems, from which he retired in 1998. He is still active in many ways. He is president of Four Halls Inc., a Toronto investment and consulting company. He is chairman of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance and a board member of several companies: Teleglobe Inc.; Sierra Systems Group Inc.; Nexsys Comtech Inc. of Waterloo, Ont., which is developing a product for remote meter reading; TÈlÈsystem International Wireless Inc. of Montreal, which sells and installs wireless communications internationally.

Fierheller was formerly president of the Toronto Board of Trade, chair of the Information Technology Association of Canada, president of the Canadian Information Processing Society and a founder and chair of SMART Toronto. He holds an honorary bachelor of laws from Concordia University and in 1996 received the Award of Excellence from the Canadian Wireless Communications Association.