MILTON, Ont. — John Cyopeck made good on his word. Yesterday the Trillium Health Centre Foundation received the $1 million Cyopeck promised to raise from the trucking industry — and then some. Not that anyone who knows John expected anything less.

The final count raised by Cyopeck and friends was $1.25 million. That number was matched by Mississauga businessman Harold Shipp for a grand total of $2.5 million. The event at the core of the charity effort was a Pro-Am golf tournament, and it proved to be the largest single fund-raising effort ever held by the trucking industry in Canada.

Cyopeck, the 60-year-old Mississauga man who started out driving truck almost half a century ago, is now the president and CEO of Canpar Transport. He’s a well-known industry leader, presently chairman of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, and in 2006 is slated to become chairman of the Ontario Trucking Association.

While he’s seen and overcome a lot in his career, Cyopeck is in the middle of his biggest challenge yet: A fight with brain cancer. In February, John underwent surgery at the Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga where he both impressed and amused his doctors before and after the surgery.

His experience with the centre’s “fantastic service” inspired him to pledge — with the help of his good friend, Vitran Corp. CEO Rick Gaetz, and the rest of the trucking industry — $1 million for the facility to house the Trillium hospital’s new MRI unit.

Cyopeck kicked off the campaign by personally donating $100,000 and since that time, John’s friends and competitors in the trucking industry from across Canada needed little prodding to get behind the campaign.

Cyopeck, who has missed a grand total of 3 days of work following his surgery, says he thought more needed to be done for those less fortunate than him who have also been stricken with illness. “I feel compelled to assist those who are directly affected by stressful and often life-threatening delays,” he says.

Cyopeck’s Delivering a Dream Campaign is the largest single fund-raising effort of its kind in the Canadian trucking industry. Says David Bradley, president of the CTA: “John says he has been blessed, but it is also we who are lucky enough to be counted among his friends who are blessed.”

These days, Cyopeck is in high spirits. Unfortunately, the surgery did not remove the tumour completely and Cyopeck has since been undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatment at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital. He is doing remarkably well.