Steve Girardin, Micro Bird’s president and CEO, reminisces about company patriarch Lionel Girardin at headquarters in Drummondville, Quebec. While Steve never met his grandfather, he said Lionel’s core values of innovation and customer service are deeply engrained.
C
ertainly, the school bus industry has taken notice of recent innovations from Micro Bird, a joint venture between Girardin Minibus of Quebec and Blue Bird, allow-
ing the brand to become the market share leader last year in the ultra-competitive and ever-fluctuating Type-A segment. Not to be confused with the flagship Type-C model of its U.S. partner, the vision at Micro Bird is to be recognized across the bus industry as the best vehicle supplier based on customer satisfaction and technolog- ical innovation. For 50 years, the Type-A school bus manufacturer
has more than accomplished that feat, helped by the most unique perspective and experience in the market. Tat’s what happens when a company adds to its lon- gevity three distinct skill sets, namely being a dealer- ship, a transportation provider and a manufacturer of its own minibus. Despite not entering the U.S. market until 1988, Micro Bird, the brand name of Girardin Minibus, is the oldest manufacturer of its kind when factoring in its Canadian history. It is truly also one of the industry’s first “DIAY” student transportation companies, as in “Do It All Yourself.” More recently, Micro Bird has also stood out for be- ing the first to embrace the Ford Transit cutaway chas- sis to reduce costs for customers, as well as to provide drivers and passengers with more comfortable rides. Phil Horlock, president and CEO of Blue Bird, called the partnership with Girardin on the Micro Bird
T-Series “a game-changer” and indicative of the safety, durability and quality that customers have come to expect of the Type-A brand. “We are proud to recognize our outstanding partner- ship with the Girardin family over the past 50 years,” Horlock said. “Te Girardin family’s expertise in the manufacturing, distribution and operation of buses is known throughout the industry, and no-one builds a higher quality Type A bus than Micro Bird. I would like to congratulate Girardin for their legacy in small- bus innovation and for passionately serving the Type A customer with our Blue Bird Micro Bird products. We look forward to continuing our Micro Bird success with Girardin for many more years to come.” But the value of embracing technology is also a re- sult of the propane-autogas option and, before that, the development of its flagship MB-II as well as the launch of the dual-wheel Girardin G5, which was redesigned with customer needs in mind, not the least of these being their budgets. “Market-turning innovations,” in the words of Steve
Girardin, president and CEO of Girardin Minibus, is simply what his family has always strived for. “It’s not about disruptive technology as much as it’s about rais- ing the bar all the time and making sure the standards improve all the time,” he said. Interestingly, despite being centered in hockey coun-
try, the company regularly uses the common basketball vernacular “plus-one” to describe continual improve- ment that developed from customer service training
Opposite page: Two Micro Bird Type-A school buses being prepared at the company’s plant, which employs more than 400 workers.
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