Nicosia, Cyprus

Captain Stephen Roberts CD, AdeC

Captain Stephen Roberts started his military career as a cadet with 172 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Cadets. He served for five years earning a flying scholarship (a private pilot's licence) and was promoted up to the rank of Warrant Officer II. After Air Cadets, Roberts joined the Army Reserves, 2 Company, Canadian Provost Corp. (the Military Police) based at the now closed College Street Armoury in Toronto.

After a year he transferred to The Toronto Scottish Regiment at Fort York Armoury and was posted to Support Company operating the 81mm mortar. During a six year period he was promoted up to the rank of Warrant Officer. Within Support Company, Roberts started as a number three on the mortar crew, and finished up as a Mobile Fire Controller, out front and to the flank, directing the fire.

Roberts was selected for officer training and appointed as an Officer Cadet. Captain Roberts held a variety of regimental positions including Adjutant and Company Commander. At the Scottish World Festival as the junior subaltern, he carried the Regimental Colour during The Toronto Scottish Regiment's only trooping since the colours were presented by the Colonel-in-Chief, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, in 1965. While in England before the parade, Roberts had an audience with Her Majesty and recorded an audiotape of her address to the Regiment, which was played during the ceremony at Exhibition Stadium. Roberts was the Adjutant during the visit of Her Majesty to the Regiment, and the presentation of a new Queen's Colour. During the visit he was also the Baggage Officer for the royal party. For family reasons Roberts transferred to the supplementary list.

After a few years he returned to The Toronto Scottish Regiment and was posted to Central Militia Area Headquarters as a Public Affairs Officer. In 1989 he was the military public affairs officer for the 50th Anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's 1939 visit to Canada. At the end of the summer he was called out to assist with media inquires immediately after the Snowbird crashes during the Canadian International Air Show. In September, he was sent to Cyprus to produce a series of television news stories on Canadian Peacekeeping operations.

For six years, during summer exercises, Roberts recruited and managed a military video production team. Using a Betacam SP broadcast video edit suite housed in a Winnebago, the team recorded scenes of the exercises and provided stock footage support to visiting television news crews. In September 1994, with only three days notice, he was deployed to Rwanda to produce a series of interactive television interviews, technically known as "double-enders" between Canadian soldiers and television networks and stations based in Ontario. This type of focused media relations was a first for the Canadian Armed Forces. As a result of the high level of acceptance by the media, he was sent to Bosnia and Croatia in April 1995. The interviews have been broadcast by CBC, CTV, Global, SRC, TV "A", and most of the regional television stations in Ontario.

In 1997 Roberts was appointed as the Regimental Aide-de-Camp (AdeC) to The Lieutenant Governor for the Province of Ontario. As of 31 March 1998, most of the class "A" positions at the HQ were closed, and he was posted back to The Toronto Scottish Regiment. Since then he has been called-out to provide support during in the Ice Storm, Toronto Snow Storm, Prince Andrew's visit to the Queens York Rangers, the NATO Minister's Conference in 1999, and for Operation Abacus, The Canadian Forces preparation for Y2K.

In March 2000 he escorted a City-TV camera team to Fort Knox in Kentucky for Exercise South Drive. This resulted in three, 5 minutes stories and a 30 minute special on the exercise. In August, Roberts was put in charge of co-ordinating the public affairs for the Canadian units taking part the National Tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in England and Scotland. In September 2000 he spent a month at the Sydney 2000 Olympics as a Supervisor of the Press Room, responsible for 755 workstations and 200 Info terminals, it was the largest in Olympic history. He spent another month traveling around Australia, visiting New Zealand and Fiji.

On Saturday March 30th 2002, immediately after it was announced publicly that Her Majesty had died, Roberts called the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman. The Colonel initiated Operation Tay Bridge. For the next ten days Roberts co-ordinated interviews and live television appearances in both Britain and Canada. This summer he became a member of the Canadian International Air Show's, Public Affairs - Media Relations Committee, taking part in numerous planning and co-ordination meetings in the weeks leading up to the 53rd annual air show. Prior to the three day event, and because of his military background, he was asked to researched and developed background material on the various military aircraft taking part.

During media day at Pearson Airport, Roberts was one of the CIAS escorts for media visiting the flight line. They were there to interview the military participants and to get up close to aircraft participating. He co-ordinated interviews for Global Television News during live broadcasts, and made arrangements to get CITY-TV's Videographer, Dominic Sciullo, into the cockpit of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds jet to record a segment. To do his reports Mr. Sciullo uses two video cameras, a standard Betacam broadcast video camera, and other is a small DV camera that he holds at arms length and points at himself. Because Dominic Sciullo did not have a tripod for the Betacam, Roberts recorded the establishing shot of Dominic sitting in the cockpit of the Snowbird using the $60,000 camera.

This year during the CIAS, he was the Manager, Protocol helping to co-ordinate the visits by senior military officers from the Canadian, British and United States forces. On very short notice he arranged for Colonel Charley Fox DFC & Bar to open the Tribute to the Veteran show on Monday September 5th.

In September 2002 and prior to Her Majesty The Queen's visit to Toronto during the Golden Jubilee Tour of Canada, Roberts was invited to join a media relations team. His role was to assist in co-ordinating the movement of pool media in front of the Royal party during the walkabout at the Festival of Ontario held at the National Trade Centre.

In 2003 he became a member of the Cadet Instructor Cadre as a public affairs officer and was posted of two months to the Blackdown Cadet Training Centre at CFB Borden. During that period he managed the public affairs team generated three live television broadcasts, several television news reports and numerous printed stories. He missed 2004 because he was in Athens at the Olympics, but was invited back for the summer of 2005.

Stephen Roberts was born in London, England, and immigrated to Canada with parents. He has worked for Ontario Hydro in a variety of positions, finally with Public Affairs, Ontario Hydro Nuclear. For 18 years he was a single parent with two sons, Gregory, and Evan.

Roberts is a member of the Royal Canadian Military Institute, and is the Editor for the RCMI's monthly newsmagazine called "Members' News". He is also a member of the Canadian Public Relations Society and the Internation Association of Business Communicators.

His hobbies include photography, SCUBA diving, cross-country and downhill skiing.

E-mail: me@stephen-roberts.com

October 2005

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