After graduating from RTA with the Best Production Award, I couldn’t find work during the recession of 1982. So, I pivoted and worked as a video tech in an ad agency. Before I knew it, I was a creative director, writing ads and managing creative teams. One of my most famous creations is the long-running, ‘It was a rainy day in Pizzaville’ radio campaign.

“I’ve since left advertising to pursue film and television projects. I started with a comedy short that premiered at TIFF and a feature film, Eating Buccaneers. But with the industry in such flux, I pivoted again and took one of my unproduced TV projects and turned it into a fictional podcast called Dying On Tuesday. Set in the late 1980s, this dark comedy is about an unscrupulous waterbed salesman who tries to cheat his fate when a beautiful psychic tells him he’s going to die in seven days.

On October 5, 2024, the graduating class of RTA ’84 marked their 40th anniversary. We talked ourselves hoarse, taking the time to tell stories, reminisce and share the love.

Jamie, Blue Jays Central host on Sportsnet, sent along this photo of himself and his fellow alumni gathering for a recent reunion. A member of the Sportsnet broadcast team since the network’s inaugural season in 1998, Jamie received a TMU Alumni Award of Distinction in 2024. 

Left to right: Andrew Thomas, Cynthia Graves, Tyler Stewart (from Barenaked Ladies), Carrie Hughes, Cheryl-Ann Batasar, Trevor Marshall, James Whorpole, Jamie Campbell.

After 50 years of successful sales and marketing leadership for leading edge technology companies in North America, I will be retiring in 2025. My partner Annie and I raised three girls and now have five grandsons to enjoy together. I like training for sprint triathlons, restoring classic vehicles, playing golf and, during COVID, I even wrote and published my autobiography. We now reside in St. Marys, Georgia. I am a lucky man!

Rick sent this photo to Class Notes with a message: “How many 1970 grads get their own billboard on a busy Kingston road [in Toronto] 55 years later?”

I wonder how many alumni recognize themselves in this photo of the residents of what was then known as Bond House, at 137 Bond St., taken in the fall of 1970? Bond House was a men’s residence, led by Don Ted Brock. I am in the back row, fifth from the left. Help fill in the blanks!

Janice Hunter Winton and her sister, Lorraine Hunter, wrote and self-published a book called Hunters in Paradise about their adolescence growing up in Nassau, Bahamas in the late 50s and early 60s. Janice is a chartered professional accountant, a former registered nurse and a retired vice-president of administration and finance for TMU. (Lorraine worked as a journalist for many years both reporting and editing for newspapers and magazines including the Peterborough Examiner, Ottawa Journal and Toronto Star.)

Lorraine and her sister Janice Hunter Winton wrote and self-published a book called Hunters in Paradise about their adolescence growing up in Nassau, Bahamas in the late 50s and early 60s. Lorraine worked as a journalist for many years both reporting and editing for newspapers and magazines including the Peterborough Examiner, Ottawa Journal and Toronto Star. Janice is a chartered professional accountant, a former registered nurse and a retired vice-president of administration and finance for TMU.

I had a 20-plus year career at Bell Canada in sales, marketing, customer care and international startups. In 2000, I entered the digital information signage business, running my own company until 2014, then selling the company and continuing as an account manager. Since 2005, we have had a family olive oil business called Spartan Rolling Hills. We source the product from our own groves in southern Greece, import it bulk to Canada, bottle it and sell it to approximately 100 retail stores across Ontario.

I’m now retired. I’ve been married 67 years with three children, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. I worked for 30 years for Canron Inc. Pipe Division in locations that included Cherry Street in Toronto, Montreal, Ville D’Anju and Trois-Rivières in Quebec in various positions over the years, from manager of manufacturing operations to negotiating union contracts. I enjoyed travelling to Hong Kong, Mainland China, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hawaii and several European countries, as well as touring England and cruising the Baltic countries.

Long-time friends David and Kate wrote a play together, Dead Right, that premiered at the 2024 Toronto Fringe Festival. The comedy is about a dying woman who makes an end-of-life pact with her partner, to the consternation of her daughter.