Proud Vice president, general manager of Bell Textron Canada since September of 2023, Michael Nault began an exciting career at Bell in 2006 as an Airframe Structures Engineer after graduating from École Polytechnique de Montreal with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He then worked as a Product Engineer at Kautex, an automotive business unit of Textron, followed by Bell’s flight research center to work flight test on the BA609 (Now AW609) tiltrotor and at Lycoming engines as a Systems Engineer, before coming back to Mirabel in 2011 to manage the technical team supporting operations. In 2013, Michael was named Chief Engineer for the light helicopters.

Over the course of two years, Michael led his team in implementing several safety enhancements, performance improvements and pilot workload reduction features that lead to the successful launch of the Bell 407GXP at Heli-Expo in 2015, where they also announced an order for 200 Bell 407GXPs, one of the largest commercial helicopter orders in Bell’s history. Michael was recognized in 2015 for this successful new product by winning the Larry D. Bell Pioneer Award and also the Textron Chairman’s Award for Innovation. In late 2015, Michael was named Program Director for Bell’s light helicopters. Michael was also named on the Top 20 under 40 in Aerospace list by Canadian magazines Wings and Helicopters.

In 2018, Michael transferred from Bell to another Textron business unit, TRU Simulation + Training in Montreal. As the Vice president, Engineering, overseeing the Commercial aviation side of the business, he was responsible for new product development as well as supporting the existing fleet of simulators worldwide.

Michael returned to Bell in early 2020 to lead the Mirabel Completion Center. He was responsible for completing, certifying and delivering all commercial helicopters out of the Mirabel facility.

Before becoming Vice president, general manager, Michael held the role of Director of Commercial Programs, where he was responsible for program strategy, profitability, configuration control, certification, continuing airworthiness, supplier relations, obsolescence, transitions, project management, production, fleet and sales support for all of the commercial helicopters in production.