OCTOBER 2016
H
business elite canada
3
By Rajitha Sivakumaran
I
n 1976 when Jean-Yves Drolet founded
Manulift EMI, a company specializing in
telehandler distribution, he had no idea
that his modest business venture would
one day come to own more than 70 per
cent of the market share in Eastern Can-
ada. His initial efforts popularized SkyTrak
telehandlers in Eastern Quebec’s con-
struction landscape, which a decade later
were seen on countless construction sites.
Manulift has become one of SkyTrak’s top
10 most successful distributors.
But the uphill journey sometimes went
awry. The recession in the early 1980s was
one example of a downhill plight. Canadi-
ans witnessed high inflation and interest
rates. As some made fortunes and others
fell to penury, Drolet braved through it all.
His son, Martin Drolet, entered the busi-
ness in the 1990s at a time when the econ-
