Joseph-Armand Bombardier (April 16, 1907 – February 18, 1964) was a Canadian inventor and businessman, and was the founder of Bombardier.
Born to a large family of prosperous farmers and small shopkeepers in the small town of Valcourt, not too far from Sherbrooke, southeast of
MontrealMontreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie , the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the...
in the province of
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. Bombardier's brothers were later to help him out in several aspects of running what would eventually become a large
mechanical engineeringMechanical Engineering is an engineering discipline that was developed from the application of principles from physics and materials science. Mechanical engineering involves the analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of various systems...
concern, leaving him free to concentrate on mechanical innovations and high-level corporate orientations.
Joseph-Armand Bombardier (April 16, 1907 – February 18, 1964) was a Canadian inventor and businessman, and was the founder of Bombardier.
Early life and education
Born to a large family of prosperous farmers and small shopkeepers in the small town of Valcourt, not too far from Sherbrooke, southeast of
MontrealMontreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie , the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the...
in the province of
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. Bombardier's brothers were later to help him out in several aspects of running what would eventually become a large
mechanical engineeringMechanical Engineering is an engineering discipline that was developed from the application of principles from physics and materials science. Mechanical engineering involves the analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of various systems...
concern, leaving him free to concentrate on mechanical innovations and high-level corporate orientations. Later still his own sons and daughters were to be instrumental in making his company grow to international proportions.
Bombardier was largely self-taught, picking up
mechanical engineeringMechanical Engineering is an engineering discipline that was developed from the application of principles from physics and materials science. Mechanical engineering involves the analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of various systems...
by fixing things, reading, and taking notes. He had a mechanical genius and a driving ambition to make the winter months as easy to navigate as the other ones. The first snowmobile of his teenage years was a small surface-skimming contraption with a propeller.
Before the war
He started off small by opening a garage in Valcourt in 1926, fixing cars and selling
gasolineGasoline or petrol is a petroleum-derived liquid mixture, primarily used as fuel in internal combustion engines...
in the three snow-free seasons of the year, and tinkering with his project of building a snowmobile during the snowbound winter. Before
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and on through much of the 1940s the
Quebec governmentThe politics of Quebec are centred on a provincial government resembling that of the other Canadian provinces, namely a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The capital of the province is Quebec City, where the Lieutenant Governor, Premier, the legislature, and cabinet reside.The...
did not plough the rural roads around Valcourt and elsewhere in the province. The inhabitants had to put away their cars and light trucks and resort to horse-drawn sleighs when heavy trucks were not available. The heavy
snowSnow is a type of precipitation in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. Snowflakes...
made things difficult for
family doctorsA general practitioner or GP is a medical practitioner who provides primary care and specializes in family medicine. A general practitioner treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes...
or just about anybody who had urgent business to do in these areas, and Joseph-Armand Bombardier saw this as a challenge.
In 1937, after years of research and development, he started producing the B-7, an enclosed
half-trackA half-track is a civilian or military vehicle with regular wheels on the front for steering, and caterpillar tracks on the back to propel the vehicle and carry most of the load. The purpose of this combination is to produce a vehicle with the cross-country capabilities of a tank and the handling...
machine with his
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
ed
caterpillar trackContinuous tracks are large tracks used on the so-called caterpillar tanks, construction equipment and certain other off-road vehicles. Unlike the Kégresse tracks which use a flexible belt, most continuous tracks are made of a number of rigid units that are joined to each other...
and
sprocketA sprocket is a profiled wheel with teeth that meshes with a chain, track or other perforated or indented material. It is distinguished from a gear in that sprockets are never meshed together directly, and from a pulley by not usually having a flange at each side.Sprockets are used in bicycles,...
assembly in the back and skis in the front. Previous track systems were not suitable for the moist-snow conditions of Southern Quebec.
World War 2
However, at the start of World War 2, the Canadian government issued war-time rationings, saying that citizens had to prove the purchase of a snowmobile was essential to their livelihood. This caused Bombardier's sales to drop.
In 1942 he incorporated his company and produced the B-12 machine, which could hold 12 passengers snugly and featured many improvements. The production of the B-12 went on for several decades and examples of it were still found running at the turn of the millennium in remote snowbound areas all over
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
.
After the war and later years
The decision of the Quebec government to plough country roads in the winter of 1949 cost Bombardier much of its local market for the B-12 and its variants. This led Joseph-Armand Bombardier to diversify into other off-terrain tracked vehicles, such as a heavy-duty
MuskegMuskeg is an acidic soil type common in Arctic and boreal areas, although it is found in other northern climates as well. Muskeg is more-or-less synonymous with bogland but muskeg is the standard term in non-Atlantic Canada and Alaska . The term is of Cree origin, maskek meaning low lying marsh...
tractor meant for
miningMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash...
exploration and the
forestryForestry is the art and science of managing forests, tree plantations, and related natural resources. The main goal of forestry is to create and implement systems that allow forests to continue a sustainable continuation of environmental supplies and services...
industries.
Dissatisfaction with suppliers of the
rubberNatural rubber is an elastomer that was originally derived from a milky colloidal suspension, or latex, found in the sap of some plants. The purified form of natural rubber is the chemical polyisoprene, which can also be produced synthetically...
track for the big Muskeg tractor led him to make his own, in a subsidiary operated by his son Germain. This in turn made it possible for him to produce a relatively small continuous rubber track for the light one- or two-person snowmobile he had dreamt of as a teenager. When small, reliable four-stroke engines appeared in the 1950s he had all the ingredients he needed in hand. He produced the first prototype of the snowmobile in 1958 and started production in 1959. Sales were slow in the first years since the mass consumer market was very different from his usual industrial and commercial customer base. When he died in 1964, snowmobiles had gone from sales of 200 a year to 8200, spurring several factory expansions.
Honors
In 2000, Joseph-Armand Bombardier was honoured by the
government of CanadaThe government of Canada is established as a constitutional monarchy, with the powers and structure of the federal government established by the Constitution of Canada, which includes the written part, the decisions of courts, and unwritten conventions developed over time.-Usage:In Canadian...
with his image on a
postage stamp.
In 2004, the name Joseph-Armand-Bombardier was given by the
QuebecQuebec is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking identity and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
government to a highway near Drummondville.
There is also a scholarship in his honor.
1-Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program:
Master’s Scholarships
2- Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Program: Doctoral Scholarships and SSHRC Doctoral Fellowships Program
External links