He built a telecom empire from scratch, based on a hunch, hard work and lucky breaks.
He sold that company for $76 million in 1999 and began building a country mansion northeast of London only to be diagnosed with cancer weeks later.
After a long battle back to health, he’s emerged as philanthropist and investor who finances made-in-London movies and promising research that could produce a cure for Crohn’s Disease.
He travels the world, shares his luxurious “man-cave” with his two sons but still does his own laundry.
This is the amazing life of Rob Freeman.
The mansion known as Avalon is a impressive sight driving west over the bridge crossing the Thames River on Plover Mills Rd.
The home is built on a hill and has a five-storey glass wall looming over the river valley. It has quickly became the stuff of legend.
About 12 years ago, a car pulled up to the gate where a man was cutting the front lawn.
“It’s a shame, eh? The guy has this big company and sells it and builds this big house. But now he’s dead and won’t get to enjoy it,” the driver said.
The man on the lawn mower grinned.
“Actually, I’m that guy,” said Rob Freeman.
When Rob Freeman was a kid growing up in Sarnia, he owned toy telephones he wanted to show off to a friend.
He discovered the phones were broken. Undeterred, he dismantled the phones and repaired a loose wire. They worked and he was hooked. Phones became an obsession.
His father bought him antique phones and a switchboard and he wired his own phone system for his neighbourhood buddies.
When he was 12 he toured the local Bell Telephone office and learned how their system worked.
Freeman studied electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo in the early ’70s but couldn’t get the hang of using a slide rule. Back then electronic calculators were expensive and basic. Freeman found a supplier with a more advanced calculator.
He made a deal to sell 100 calculators to fellow students for $89.95. He sold them in a week and cleared over $5,000.
Better, cheaper calculators soon flooded the market but Freeman had found his window of opportunity and became a lifelong entrepreneur.
Freeman never finished his engineering degree and followed his father into the real estate business in 1976.
But for 12 years he was a restless soul.
He became a top salesperson with Royal Trust in London but resented the long, irregular hours.
He took business courses and decided to turn his hobby of hot air ballooning into a business.
But his dreams were grounded by poor weather and for months he scratched out a living working at odd jobs such as roofing and delivering pizza.
Summer finally came and he made a tidy profit in the balloon business. He then moved to Western Canada, enrolling in college and university programs before taking a job wiring houses.
By 1988 he was back in London selling real estate. He was still looking for that big break.
“I wanted to invent something I could sell by the thousands for a low price — some kind of widget.”
Long distance has come a long way in 25 years.
In 1988, calling Strathroy from London was long-distance and cost 42 cents a minute.
That meant big bills for Freeman who sold homes in the area.
One day he had a flash of inspiration. Calls from Mt. Brydges were local to both Strathroy and London.
All he need was multiple lines and redialling equipment to “jump” calls between communities so he could offer flat-rate long-distance service.
“It just seemed too good to be true. Why hadn’t other people seen this?”
He drew circles on an Ontario map to figure out how the long-distance network could spread.
Bell Canada told him it couldn’t be done but Freeman found loopholes that made it all legal. He set up in Mt. Brydges and started signing up customers, later extending the network to St. Thomas and Exeter. He had found his “widget” and London Telecom was born.
In 1990, deregulation changed everything. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) forced companies such as Bell Canada to share phone lines with resellers, and the long-distance market was wide open.
London Telecom was in a good spot to jump in but competition was fierce.
Freeman caught some lucky breaks. He ordered documents on the new regulations from the CRTC but accidentally received a package of market information meant for Bell Canada. Freeman called the CRTC and returned the parcel — right after memorizing the information.
Freeman decided to set up his business in the lucrative Hamilton-Toronto corridor.
But deregulation was new and potential customers were skeptical.
“No one would believe me. I had doors slammed in my face.”
One day a reporter called and Freeman convinced him his system was not a scam.
The morning the newspaper article appeared, the phone started ringing and orders flooded in.
London Telecom was the first to offer flat-rate long-distance across Canada. During the ’90s, it grew to 350 employees and 130,000 customers.
Freeman stuck with the name London Telecom, even though the company was based in Hamilton.
In 1999, the company was sold to U.S.-based giant Primus for $76 million.
Freeman, who owned 85% of the privately held company, figured another window of opportunity was about to close.
“I knew it was time to sell, because there were many competitors who were copying our plan.”
With his new wealth, Freeman set up a charitable foundation to support a group home in Burlington for mentally handicapped adults.
He had already started building Avalon, a $12-million estate on 80 hectares on the Thames River south of St. Marys.
A few weeks after the sale of London Telecom, Freeman was riding a dirt bike on his property while his new home was under construction.
He tumbled off the bike, suffering injuries and later felt a lump beneath his ribs.
He thought it was muscle spasm but after a series of tests he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, an often-fatal form of blood cancer.
Freeman’s marriage had ended in 1995 but he had two young sons and he was determined to live.
“I resolved to fight — to find somebody or something that could save my life. I would go to the ends of the Earth.”
And he did. Freeman travelled all over the world looking for a cure. He tried the healing waters of the shrine in Lourdes, France, and got alternative treatment in Mexico.
But he also got conventional chemotherapy and radiation treatment in Vancouver in a health centre run by Dr. Hal Gunn.
Freeman later developed a severe infection from a treatment he received in Texas and almost died.
But the infection also slowed down Freeman’s cancer. Gunn showed him research indicating the infection might have the effect of boosting the immune system.
Gunn believed there was potential to develop vaccines from various bacteria to boost the immune system to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases.
In 2007, the same year Freeman was declared cancer-free, he and Gunn co-founded the research company Qu Biologics to develop the treatment.
The vaccine has also been used to treat Crohn’s Disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that afflicts 100,000 Canadians.
Tyler Wilson, a resident of Thorndale who suffered from a severe case of Crohn’s, was the first to try the vaccine and went into complete remission.
Freeman said eight of the 11 Crohn’s patients who tried the vaccine have also had good results.
Qu Biologics has just started a formal clinical trial of the vaccine on 60 Crohn’s patients.
If it works, Freeman said his past business success will pale in comparison.
“It appears to be a cure. Only time will tell.”
Avalon is a showplace that been featured in magazine and home tours.
The 13,000 sq. ft. mansion features cherrywood panelling and flooring, a grand atrium, curved staircases and seven fireplaces. Huge windows on five floors offer spectacular views of the landscaped grounds sloping down to the Thames River. The estate includes an adjacent farm for riding horses and 80 hectares with dirt bike and ATV trails.
But for Freeman and his two sons Zan, 24, and Mark, 23, it’s a “giant man-cave.”
Designed by Rob’s brother Ron, it has two pool tables, lots of big screen TVs, an elevator and a weight room.
A separate wing houses a indoor pool with a waterfall, hot tub and steam and dry saunas.
On the table in the formal dining room is the family’s latest tech toy, a 3D printer that manufactures plastic items from designs downloaded from the Internet.
Like any man cave, it’s not always tidy. The master bedroom is strewn with clothes. Freeman explains it’s laundry day. The cleaners who come in every two weeks have trouble operating his high-tech washer, so Freeman prefers to do it himself.
Freeman’s sons inherited his entrepreneurial spirit. Zan picked up on his father’s love of hot air ballooning and runs Cloud Chasers (cloudchasers.ca), a balloon ride business.
Mark picked up a video camera when he was 12 and never looked back, graduating from film programs in Vancouver and at Fanshawe College. He operates the YouTube channel markfreeman408 that features advertising-supported videos of spectacular stunts on dirt bikes, ATVs and snowmobiles.
Freeman has always loved movies and has a painting from The Wizard of Oz in his recreation room.
Avalon has become a movie magnet. In 2007, it was used for background publicity shots for the TV series MVP. It later became a set for scenes in the movie Junior High Spy and several other small films.
Last year Freeman hooked up with London producers Geoff Hart and Cody Hackman and became one of the principal investors in Tapped, a martial arts film shot in London last year. Another film, Severed Connection, will go into production later this year.
Freeman is betting his own money that London can be a film centre.
“We can do things here for a fraction of the cost.”
Freeman knows how to enjoy his wealth and travels frequently. He’s an avid skier and looking to buy a condo in Colorado and build a tropical retreat in Costa Rica.
But he says he’s rooted here in the London area.
“I travel a lot but this is home.”
Freeman said the long climb to success hasn’t changed him.
“It’s like a balloon ride. You rise slowly and get used to the height. I gradually got used to the big numbers.”
hank.daniszewski@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/HankatLFPress
Avalon by the numbers
What: $12-million home built by Rob Freeman on property formerly owned by Clarence and Marie Peterson, parents of Premier David Peterson
12,900: square feet of home
5: levels
5: bedrooms
7: bathrooms
7: fireplaces
1: indoor pool with waterfall
1: hot tub
2: saunas
1: gym/weight room
1: elevator
Source:http://londonhub.blogspot.com/2013/05/change-text-size-for-story-london-free_18.html
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