IN PROFILE: Adam Fremeth

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By Elvis Anber
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Threading together business and politics
 
 
Adam Fremeth
 
When Adam Fremeth came to The University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business in July 2009, he returned to his old stomping grounds. Only this time as an assistant professor – at the age of 31.
 
“My professors becoming my colleagues – that was a big transition,” Fremeth says. “It’s not like going to a new place and everyone’s a colleague without history.”
But for Fremeth, who was also an instructor at Ivey while pursuing his HBA, age was never of paramount concern.
 
“I’ve worked in the House of Commons, so the age difference isn’t a big deal.”
 
Not yet 20, Fremeth worked as a legislative assistant for a member of Parliament. The experience, he says, was eye-opening.  “I was 19 years old and I was dealing with people who had real issues – immigration, tax, you name it.”
 
Fremeth – who was born in Montreal, but grew up in Ottawa – returned to the nation’s capital after his HBA to pursue a master’s at Carleton’s renowned Norman Patterson School of International Affairs. He worked at the Centre for Trade Policy and Law. At that think tank, he says, “pulled the thread between my business training and my political training.” 
 
That experience propelled Fremeth in 2004 to the University of Minnesota where he would remain for the next five years pursuing a doctorate in strategic management and organization. There, he says, he could pursue his other academic interests.
 
“My work extends outside the business school and also deals with economics and political science, which were really strong there as well,” he says. “It gave me the freedom to do all these things at a high level.”
 
Landing an assistant professorship immediately was only one of several feats for Fremeth in 2009. He also finished his dissertation, got engaged and later married, and bought a house.  “People say there are three or four stressful things you go through in your life. I went through three of them in a six-month period.”
 
Today, other obligations keep him busy. His desk is covered in all directions with paper and only a picture of his wife, Rachel, stands out in the sea of white.
 
“I’m teaching; I’m advising students; I have projects – I can’t put anything away,” he says.
 
The environmental policies of both firms and governments, and the tension that arises between the two are where his academic passions lie, with a personal connection trailing back to his childhood. His father comes from a farming background, and although Fremeth himself did not grow up working on a farm, repeated talk of the agricultural life with family left an indelible impression on his academic pursuits.
 
“It’s very much ingrained in me the importance of the land, and being able to live off it and get what you need from it.”   
 
Discussions with his father were particularly telling.
 
“I’m spewing this rational and theoretical approach to it (such as the issues of subsidies in farming as one example) and he’s lived it. He’s seen the ups and downs of what it means to have a strong farming culture in Canada and it was always something that was traditionally important.”
 
One summer, his father spent the morning clearing the field, waking up early to tackle the brush and trees. Whenever they visit the farm, he points out “his field” to Fremeth.
 
His brother Howard, 30, who is in his final year of a PhD in communications at Carleton, believes it was their father’s work ethic that drove Fremeth to succeed early on.
 
“Our father never really pushed us, but when you see someone working hard you feel compelled to move in that direction. Adam would be a great case study for psychologists, someone who feels he has to be a role model for me and my sister.”
 
And what advice does Fremeth offer other young, academic aspirants?
 
“Work hard and pursue your interests,” he says.
 
Favourite country: Italy
Favourite economist: Leo Hurwicz
Favourite book: The Sun Also Rises
Fun fact: Met his wife in Minneapolis at the Kitty Kat Klub, the same venue where Bob Dylan performed in his early days.   
 

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