To know Joe Rotman was to love Joe Rotman

It has been two weeks since the passing of Dr. Joseph L. Rotman, O.C., LLD, and the international outpouring of grief and affection continues. If you were lucky enough to have met him, or even come to know him over the years, you well understand why his absence has created such a hole in the lives of so many people across North America and overseas.

Joe meant a great deal to all of us at our house. He was the kind of person that children wanted to adopt to be their own Zaide. Those are rare.

There was something about him that drew everyone in, young or old. My father referred to the boundless happiness that seemed to be flowing in his veins. Considering that he lived every day just as he wanted, engaging with world class researchers, academics and entrepreneurs on topics that deeply interested him, I suppose it should be expected. But, even then, he let the rest of us share in his joy. He “showed his face”, as my late Mother would have said; those people are not a dime-a-dozen, particularly in business. It takes a brave person to let others in, and it my honour to have known him for the past 20 years.

His accomplishments in business and philanthropy have been well arrayed in the print media, but the thing to remember isn’t the name on a business school, donor board or a medical discovery institution. Few of us will ever have the financial success to give us the luxury of building great institutions or programmes. What everyone can do, however, is follow in Mr. Rotman’s footsteps just the same. His special gift wasn’t just that he and his wife Sandy and their family could make a meaningful financial contribution to a particular endeavour, it was that he put all of his energy into the project.

At the age of 60, Mr. Rotman began a “second career.” That’s what you’ve been reading about in the newspapers: Chancellor of the University of Western Ontario, Benefactor and visionary for the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, Chairman of the Ontario Brain Institute, Chairman of the Canada Council for the Arts, Chairman of Grand Challenges Canada, founder and board member of MaRS, past chairman of the Ontario Genomics Institute, past chairman of the AGO, founder of Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute in neuroscience and founder of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario.

It is exhausting just writing that list out; imagine how much energy Joe put into each and every one of these remarkable undertakings. That the Rotman School of Management was named Canada’s top business school last week was poetic, and confirmed that an individual can make a difference on a generation.

He knew what we all knew: that life was precious and time was short. You can’t be a collector of 1500 year old artifacts and not appreciate that your ability to have a positive impact on the world around you is limited by the frailty of the human body. Mr. Rotman didn’t just write a cheque, attend the unveiling ceremony and walk proudly away from the edifice — he threw himself into whatever the young people, researchers, scientists and/or politicians were doing inside the building in question.

We’d all be wise to live life as Joe did. And you can. It doesn’t take a penny: just a combination of warmth and drive.

MRM