In 1923, at the age of 15, Joseph-Armand Bombardier built a crude but workable snowmobile. Fifteen years later, the young mechanic patented his first seven-person snowmobile. With a vision of improving transportation, Bombardier’s dream grew from helping people cross snow-covered roads in rural Quebec to becoming a leading global transportation firm across multiple segments. These days, after divesting its train, Ski-Doo snowmobile, Sea-Doo personal watercraft, and ATV divisions, Bombardier is only focused on designing and building business jets. But even just that one endeavor has been an exercise in how to lead in a highly competitive industry with worthy competitors such as Gulfstream, Dassault Aviation, and Citation Jets. Bombardier entered aviation in 1985 with the purchase of Canadair, the leading Canadian manufacturer of Challenger wide-body jets—and grew the Challenger name to be the world’s largest-selling business jet. At the same time, Bombardier developed its Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) program. It..
