BRAMPTON, Ont. – Skills for Change, a Toronto-area organization, has awarded Totalline Transport’s Uwre Petroschke for his achievement as an entrepreneur.

Born in Germany, Petroschke came to Canada in 1966 accompanying his family, and since then has hardly paused to look back.

Skills For Change is a non-profit organization that provides new Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area with job training and encouragement. The award, which goes to a total of six winners, recognizes the achievements of immigrants and refugees who have enriched their new communities.

Like many new immigrants to Canada, Petroschke did not speak English and the family was confronted by many challenges in adjusting to their new country.

Petroschke worked in the trucking business while in school and then entered the industry full time instead of heading to university, as he had originally planned.

In 1986, a single father with a two-year old son, he invested everything he owned and established Totalline Transport.

With one truck running from Toronto to Vancouver, in those early days, Petroschke would market to customers during the day, load his truck at night and on weekends took care of the administration of the business with his son on his lap.

Through sheer determination, hard work and a passion for what he was doing, he built a successful trucking and warehouse company.

In 1997, Totalline Transport’s earnings reached $9.7 million and in 2000 annual sales topped $27 million.

The company now offers trucking services to markets throughout Canada and operates from a new custom-built 130,000-sq.-ft. facility in Brampton.

In 2001, Petroschke branched out and founded TLC Logistics, a full-service logistics company focusing on the U.S. cross-border markets.

Petroschke is also a supporter of a spectrum of charities and community events from food banks, shelters, minor league baseball and hockey to Adopt-a-Family and the Shriners Children’s Wish Foundation.

He has also won a number of other accolades, including the Brampton Outstanding Business Achievement Award and, in 2000, the Outstanding Business Achievement Award by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.