1969-1974

The Quebec of the early seventies provided our director with the chance to develop as an industrial designer, his first love. The snowmobiling boom quickly made him chief designer with a snowmobile manufacturer. At age 30, Poirier already signed the design of over $2 billion's worth of sold production . This included cross-country skis and several other products including RV's , motor homes and mobile homes.
To this day, Jacques swears by that initial jolting job in the industrial field; how else could he have acquired 'in-the-field' notions of resistance of materials, after-sales service, environmental problems, production machinery design and the like. Nothing like a good little war to form a great general later on.
Also, this is where he met another highly successful business man by the name of Placide Poulin. The latter was the original partner in the Archimede factory set up in 1980. After taking the MAAX corporation to a billion dollar conglomerate, he is now retired and chairman of the board of Camada, a venture capital group led by his brilliant daughter Marie-France. It was only fitting that this group is also the biggest sponsor of the Institute.