Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases, 16/e

History

The father of the snowmobile is considered to be Edgar Hetteen, who, in 1955, with employees David Johnson, Paul Knochenmus, and Orlen Johnson, created a vehicle to ride through the snow. The primary use of the craft was to access better hunting areas that traditionally had required wearing snowshoes. The first Polaris snowmobile, which was called the Polaris Sno Traveler, rolled off the assembly line in Minnesota in 1956. Edgar displayed his snowmobile on a 1,200-mile trek across Alaska in 1960. However, unhappy with the performance of his Polaris vehicle, Edgar left the company in 1960 and started Polar Manufacturing, which was later changed to Arctic Enterprises, and ultimately went bankrupt in the 1980s. Arctic emerged from bankruptcy ...