WINNIPEG, MB – TransX’s fofounder Louie Tolaini has been inducted into the Manitoba Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame. The ceremony took place May 11, and Tolaini was one of four area enterprising achievers named to the Hall in recognition of their vision, leadership, integrity, and lifelong contribution to the Manitoba business community.

Tolaini, born in Tuscany, Italy, where he now operates a winery, started trucking in 1959 with an old truck that was so beat-up it didn’t even have a driver’s door. He used it to service Western Manitoba’s oilfields.

Four years later, he bought a small trucking business for general freight and over the next 58 years Tolaini grew TranX into the largest privately held fleet in Canada. TransX, with 1,560 trucks,  4,777 trailers, and more than 2,300 staff,  is the fourth-largest fleet in the country but the largest independently owned operation. (The three larger fleets, TransForce, Mullen and CN are publicly traded companies.)

Induction into the Hall of Fame is just one of countless business and community awards bestowed up the venerable Toulaini. In 2016, Toulaini was named the Canadian Italian Business Professional Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

The very quotable Tolaini is a veritable Mark Twain of trucking, known for his wit and insight.

“You don’t need money [to be a success],” Tolaini once said, “the banks are full of it.”

Another Tolaini-ism: “For God’s sake don’t be afraid to hire people who are smarter than you. I always try to do that.” 

Other Hall-of-Fame inductees this year are the Honourable Douglas D. Everett, chairman and strategic advisor at Royal Canadian Securities Ltd.; K-Tel Entertainment founder Philip Kives and H.Sanford Riley, President and CEO at Richardson Financial Group Ltd.