 Gougeon received a mechanical engineering degree in 1966 from what was then the General Motors Institute by co-oping at the Saginaw Malleable Iron Foundry.After five years in the Air Force, Gougeon and his brothers formed Gougeon Brothers, Inc., which manufactured sailboats, epoxy adhesives, and wind energy blades.The methods first developed by the Gougeon brothers using West System epoxy have become the standard techniques taught in colleges the world over for building boats using epoxy.