Noise Solutions Inc. As companies grow, especially at a rapid rate, entrepreneurs often struggle to keep up with that growth and the organizational expansion that comes with it$.$ Delegating tasks, hiring the right people, and managing the cash requirements of rapid growth are only some of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, like that of Rod and Scott MacDonald. Recognizing an unmet market need, this father and son team created Noise Solutions Inc. in $1997.$ The companys mission was to analyze, engineer, and manufacture custom solutions to deal with noise pollution in a variety of industries, with a focus on the Canadian energy and manufacturing sectors$.$ The Calgary, Albertabased company quickly became the North American industry leader in turnkey noise analysis and noise suppression solutions for pipeline compressor stations, manufacturing plants and even the NASA crawler that took the Space Shuttle from the assembly building to the launch pad. Success came early in finding the first reference company, mid$-$sized Stellarton Energy. With this credibility sales began to build to over $$1$ million by the second year of operation. Manufacturing was originally contracted out but it soon became apparent that the company needed to control the quality and on$-$time delivery its customers demanded. In $2003,$ Noise Solutions bought out its manufacturing partner. Scott took over management of the plant in Delburne, Alberta, and says the very first thing I did was hire people to come in and clean up the place. It was a mess. He then consolidated administration and accounting with the Noise Solutions head office and upgraded the information and communication technologies so the manufacturing could be better controlled.Scott says, in $2003$ the management style of the company was very much command and control dictatorial but as the company grew there was a need to build out the team. Originally using Rods network, people were hired for various positions. There was a need to replace Scott in the manufacturing operation to facilitate the leadership transition of the business from Rod to Scott, so an operations person was hired there. A Controller was hired to oversee the accounting and not too long after a Chief Financial Officer and an interim CEO were hired to work with the MacDonalds to make sure the succession from Rod to Scott was as seamless as possible. Unfortunately, things did not all go as planned and the CEO and CFO resigned in $2007$ over some suspicion of financial irregularities. Hiring friends and family is a bad idea, says Scott. We had to regain control and when the economy turned down in $2008$ we replaced pretty much the entire accounting and management team. Peoples skill sets will cap when you grow from $$1$ million up to $$3$ or $$4$ million. We were simply not set up for the kind of growth we wanted. Thats when we made the change from hiring people we knew, to looking for the best person we could findthe best qualified people. My role completely changed from the command and control model to a more collaborative approach, building out the management team. Now I can go away for two weeks and not worry. If you give your managers autonomy without clear direction and vision you will get in trouble. We dont have that problem today. In $2008$ Rod opened the companys U$.$S$.$ operations in Denver, which quickly became nearly half the revenues of the company. As with many business decisions, luck plays a factor and the late$-2008$ downturn in the economy quickly saw much of that revenue disappear. The company persevered in the U$.$S and quickly realized it needed to up its presence there in order to properly serve its customers. Noise Solutions opened a sales office in Pittsburghin $2012$ and a new full$-$service $55,000$ square$-$foot manufacturing facility in Sharon, Pennsylvania in $2013,$ to supplement the $25,000$ square$-$foot Canadian operation. Canadian sales have stayed strong and the company continued to grow, achieving sales of $$25$ million by $2013.$ Scott became the president of Noise Solutions in $2009$ and he embarked on a mission of personal development that included an Executive MBA from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and preparing the company to achieve aggressive growth. This included upgrading technology infrastructure and systems, but more importantly, upgrading the people side of the business. He brought in consultants to assist with an eight$-$year plan to professionalize the leadership and management of the company, created the Senior Leadership Team, and in $2014,$ he created the Future Leaders Team of employees identified as having potential to develop into the next generation of senior leaders. Having already achieved several awards for innovation and growth and being identified as one of Canadas fastest$-$growing companies in $2013$ by PROFIT magazine, Scott is not prepared to have the company rest on its past success. One of his favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein: A ship is always safe at the shorebut that is not what it is built for. To that point he has positioned the company for an aggressive targetto grow the company from $$25$ million in revenue today to the goal of $100/20/18$revenues of $$100$ million with $20$ percent EBITDA $($Earnings Before Taxes, Interest, Depreciation and Amortization$)$ by $2018.$ The Noise Solutions ship has clearly left shore and is ship$-$shape to reach its destination safelyQuestions$\mathrm{.}1.$ Based on what youve just read, how would you rate the leadership skills of Scott MacDonald? In what ways does he fit the profile of the typical business founder? In what ways is he different? How would you describe his leadership style? $2.$ Do you think Scott has the leadership skills to ensure Noise Solutions achieves the $100/20/18$ goal?$3.$ Do you think the company is large enough to have expanded to the U$.$S$.$ or should it have stayed focused in Canada?Answer all three questions on detail.