McKinsey: How did Bombardier get where it is today?

Beaudoin: As someone who has been part of the company for 34 years, I find that difficult to answer. To me, the history of Bombardier has been more like a process of evolution than any sudden change.

I joined in 1963 at the request of my father-in-law, Joseph-Armand Bombardier, who founded the company in 1942 to make snow-going equipment for industrial and commercial use. Having trained as a chartered accountant, I came in as a financial controller, but after six or seven months I found myself doing just about everything. I was 25 years old. At that time, we had a new product that my father-in-law had invented, the Ski-Doo snowmobile, and the market was booming. The company was not all that big—it employed about 700 people and had about $10 million in sales—but it was successful, with profits of about $2.5 million.

A year later, in 1964, my father-in-law died. My brother-in-law Germain took over from him, but left the company in 1966 for health reasons. I then became general manager. Those early years were a learning experience. The snowmobile industry was developing rapidly, and we had to put together...