After a distinguished career of 33 years at Prevost, the last 11 as president and CEO, Gaétan Bolduc is retiring at the end of 2015. During his time with the company, Prevost has grown from a small-but-respected operation with 280 employees that was a fairly minor player in the industry, to 1,500 employees and an industry leader in seated-coach sales.
Bolduc learned the business from the ground up over his three-plus decades. He joined Prevost in 1982 as a process technician. Four years later he became manager of industrial engineering, methods and tooling, and just kept moving up: vice president of production and material in 1993; executive vice president of operations in 1998; president and CEO in 2004.
“At the time I became president, the leaders of the company were taking a big risk,” he said. “I didn’t come with a big list of achievements; I came from within the ranks, with nothing else to offer but what I had done previously at Prevost.”
Bolduc shaped the thinking of Prevost’s business as not being just about manufacturing coaches, but rather about how those coaches are used by the owners and operators in their business, and how Prevost could best support that business with its products and its service network.
“I don’t think we’re selling a product,” he said. “I think we’re selling a partnership for the future – entering a long-term relationship with our customers. We are there to help their businesses succeed, and doing whatever it takes – anything we can do to honor our part of the relationship. That’s our mission, and we have a fantastic team that keeps doing it better every day.”
“That is the essence of a partnership, after all. When our customers and partners win, we win; when they grow, we grow.”
“He's been a great friend professionally and personally, and a great asset to Prevost over the years,” says Ron Moore, president of Burlington Trailways. “Gaétan understands the product, and he and Prevost always support their product.
“Like any business relationship, ours had its glitches from time to time. But Prevost always stood up and backed its products, and Gaétan was always right there with them. He was quick to say, ‘Hey wait a minute. That's not right. We need to fix that.’ And he would get it fixed … fast. We are going to miss him, and we wish him well.”
