Another hill to climb

[attach]3616[/attach]For many, scaling a mountain is a test of physical endurance and a once-in-a-lifetime feat, but for Bill Roberts, it’s much more than that.

The North Toronto resident said that while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro has always been a goal of his, it was some number-crunching that told him to do it now.

“There was an ad in Zoomer Magazine talking about a charity event that would raise money for women and girls in East Africa by doing the climb,” said Roberts, the president and CEO of VisionTV. “And I decided that the very best motivation for climbing Mount Kilimanjaro would be to change some statistics.”

The climb starts Feb. 28 and is being organized by the charity Care Canada, the same organization that told Roberts the three statistics that made him want to attempt to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Roberts says that for every year of school a girl in East Africa receives, her family income increases by 20 percent. That, combined with two other figures that show the vast majority of those who live in poverty are female, was enough for Roberts to spring into action.

“If we could dramatically change that, we could be dramatically changing families, villages, provinces, states and continents,” he said. “And when I figured out that I could (reach) summit on Mount Kilimanjaro on exactly the 100th anniversary of international women’s day, that just became too much poetry to resist.”

Roberts has been training daily, using various mediums to prepare. For one, he holds a brown belt in Shotokan karate, plays tennis, lifts weights and on weekends will take a long hike. Not bad for 59.

And that drive to succeed goes back to the path his career has taken over the years. Roberts says it was a “funny irony” that brought him to head VisionTV, a multifaith, multicultural television network. After an old professor of his was appointed to the head of the CRTC in the late 1970s, Roberts was asked to lend a hand.

“I was part of the team back in the late ’70s, early ’80s that put together the blueprint for something that later became VisionTV,” he said.

He later moved on to other things, including managing director at TVOntario. Then just as he was about to accept a job with NBC in New York for the Sydney Olympics, he got a call from VisionTV offering him the top job.

“I thought well you know, again listening to the poetry and the sublime, maybe this is what I should be doing instead,” Roberts said.

The theme of poetry is all part of the way he looks at the world.

Roberts says whether it’s his colleagues at work who ‘never cease to amaze me with their creativity’, or just stepping outside of his cottage at any time of year, he always takes notice of his surroundings.

“We like to say there’s no rhyme nor reason to (life) — and by and large that’s true, it just is,” he said. “But every once in a while, life gives you a little bit of rhyme and a little bit of reason … it’s just breathtaking and you have to take notice of it.”

Roberts is hoping to create a little more beautiful poetry to the world, as he’s already almost reached his goal of raising $100,000 for Care Canada.

While he’s excited to attempt a feat that is usually accomplished by people half his age, he knows that’s not the most important part.

“It’s not about me,” he said with a laugh. “Although I’m sure as heck hoping to have fun.”