Photo Dick Loek/ Toronto Star David Tavares heads Tel-e Technologies, a company that markets data, voice and wireless networking products: an astounding achievement for a man who, as a young Portuguese immigrant, struggled to make himself understood to a Bell interviewer.

David Tavares is a career entrepreneur.

The 58-year-old native of the Azores ran a trucking company, managed a furniture manufacturing business and now owns a telecommunications company.

In 1966, when the 18-year-old Portuguese immigrant came to Canada with his penniless parents and siblings, he couldn't speak English. After briefly working an assembly line at a Queensway factory, he enrolled in a three-month English course at George Brown College.

Tavares, a transmission-cable engineering mechanic back home, was desperate to return to his old profession.

But at a job interview with Bell Canada, his poor language skills made the interviewer hesitant to hire him. "I really couldn't understand your accent, your English," she said. "Why don't you apply again next year, when your English improves?"

Tavares replied forcefully: "But, madam, if I can't get this job, I am going back home, I am not going to be here next year."

Tavares's persistence convinced the manager to give him a chance. He was a Bell field technician for four years before the entrepreneurial bug bit.

He went on to open a 12-truck transportation service and later a furniture company. "I'd like to have wings so I could fly. I like to build things. I like to challenge myself," noted Tavares, winner of this year's Pioneers Entrepreneurship Award.

In the 1980s, Tavares jumped at the opportunity to return to his first love, after the federal government deregulated the telecommunications industry.

"Growing up in the small island of Azores, our only communication with the outside world was the tiny radio. We'd play with it, listening to things happening far away. I've always been fascinated by the transmission of voices. It's something that I understand inside-out."

His first company, Tel-e Connect Systems, which specialized in hooking up cables and phone lines, began with three employees: "me, myself and I." That company has grown to four, bringing in more than $50 million in sales yearly.

Honoured in 2003 by the Federation of Portuguese Canadian Business and Professionals, Tavares has always been determined to follow his passion.

"If you really want something, you will do everything to fight for it," said the father of three. "I've learned so much in Canada. I'm just proud to say that Canada is my country."