Yaroslaw Czolij was born in Ukraine. However, in 1944, before the Soviet army occupied Western Ukraine, he left the country with his parents and lived for four years in Germany, where he started his secondary education in a Ukrainian School in the city of Goslar, subsequently completing it at Lachine High School in Canada. In 1956, he received his degree in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University.
Mr. Czolij started his career as a professional engineer with Canadair, where he worked on several aircraft design projects, including designs for military and commercial transport planes, pilot training aircraft, some of which were later converted to the well-known aircraft flown in air shows by the Snowbirds of the Canadian Armed Forces, tilt-wing short take-off and landing search and rescue aircraft, and water bombers, which are very popular in Quebec for use in fire fighting. In all of these designs, he was responsible for the aircraft hydraulic systems design and the specifications for the related control equipment. His last position at Canadair was as Senior Engineering Specialist in Systems Design.
In 1977, he was assigned to a special Canadair/Metro Canada Project in Kingston, Ontario, to develop, build and test an Intermediate Capacity Transit System. This system was implemented in Vancouver at the World's Fair and in the City of Detroit. Mr. Czolij held the position of Manager of Mechanical Design and Vehicle Certification on this project.
During his professional career as an engineer, Mr. Czolij was deeply involved in the Ukrainian Cooperative Movement. He was the secretary for twenty years and president of the Board of Directors for two years of the Ukrainska Narodna Kassa.
In 1984, despite a substantial reduction of his salary, he decided to change his career to work full-time in the interests of the Ukrainian community, accepting a position as General Manager of the Ukrainian Kassa. During his tenure as General Manager, he made a strong contribution to the growth and development of this financial institution. For the past two years, he has also contributed a great deal of his time, hard work and effort to achieving the merger of two Ukrainian financial institutions in Montreal. His efforts were not in vain, as the new united Kassa has now become the fourth largest Ukrainian Credit Union in Canada, with one hundred million dollars in assets.
Thanks largely to his leadership, this new institution is now located in completely renovated premises and is equipped with the most recent technologies, meeting all modern banking requirements.
Having successfully completed this very important project, Mr. Czolij has decided that the time has come for his retirement.
During his work at the Kassa, Mr. Czolij was also on the Board of Directors of the Ukrainian Cooperative Council of Canada, whose head office is in Toronto.
In 1996, he visited Ukraine to attend a Conference of Ukrainian Credit Unions in the Diaspora and Ukraine, held both in Kyiv and Lviv. He was also responsible for the training of interns from Ukraine who came to Canada to acquire practical experience in managing credit unions. Mr. Czolij has thereby contributed to the development of credit unions in Ukraine.
During his professional career, he was also strongly involved in the Ukrainian community. He is and has been for many years the president of the Montreal Branch of the League of Ukrainian Canadians and vice-president of the St. Joseph Benevolent Institute. He was an active member of the SUM Youth Center Building Committee, and was also responsible for the building of five youth residences ("palankas") at the SUM Camp Werchowyna.
Mr. Czolij also provided consulting services for the building of two Ukrainian Catholic Churches - in Lachine and Park Extension. In addition to all this, Mr. Czolij has organized many public meetings and cultural and fund-raising events.
In recognition of his outstanding activities in the community, especially in the financial sector, Mr. Czolij was awarded the Taras Shevchenko Medal by the National Executive of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
He is married to Marika Bryniawska and they both raised two sons: Eugene, who is a lawyer and Bohdan, who is a priest in St. Catherine's, Ontario.