THE MECHANICS OF GENDER EQUALITY
P.E.I. dealership ignores outdated assumptions, writes Stephanie Wallcraft.
At the Canadian International Autoshow in February, Tammy Roach sat on a stage, restraining herself and listening politely while a male colleague told a room full of delegates that he can’t hire female sales associates for his mainstream dealerships.
They can’t handle high-pressure situations like negotiation, he said.
It’s hardly a secret these attitudes persist throughout the automotive industry. Roach is among those ignoring prejudices and carving a new path. She’s the dealer principal of Charlottetown Mitsubishi, which opened just under a year ago as P.E.I.’S first Mitsubishi store, and the island’s only dealership owned by a woman.
Starting from the ground up has given Roach a unique opportunity to be highly selective while forming her team.
“Obviously, people aren’t going to work for me that don’t want to work for a woman,” she says. “I don’t care if you’re the best technician in the world — if you have a huge attitude and you’re going to bring my team down, I don’t want you.”
What she does want is equal opportunity for capable and enthusiastic employees who are willing to learn and grow.
Enter Olivia Gibbs.
The 21-year-old lifelong Islander has been hanging around in her dad’s scrapyard since she was a young girl, fetching him tools while he tinkered with his race car. She took courses in the trades in high school to prepare herself for a career as a mechanic. But when she graduated and started applying for apprentice technician jobs, she couldn’t find anyone who would accept her.
“No one ever gave me a call back or an interview,” Gibbs says. “I have experience, but I didn’t have any certification. They were looking for people that didn’t have credentials. I felt like I filled that profile, and I never heard anything back.”
Eventually, she took a job at an automotive parts retailer. Once she had saved enough money to buy her first car, she went with her mom to Charlottetown Mitsubishi. She knew a sales associate there, Shannon Mcmurray, who she had worked with at the parts store.
“She asked me what I was doing and if I was thinking of leaving there,” Gibbs says. “I said that I would only leave if a shop would hire me as an apprentice mechanic.
“She said, ‘Well, let’s go say hi to Tammy.’”
It took a few months for the business to pick up enough in the new dealership’s shop, but as soon as it did, Gibbs was hired. She’ll begin her training next January to become a Red Seal certified technician. Roach says Gibbs has been a stellar addition to her team.
“I’ve talked to her mentor, the Red Seal who oversees her work, and he says she’s great,” Roach says. “She has a mechanical aptitude, she has attention to detail, she’s got a great work ethic. It’s fantastic. I remember her coming into my office and she’s like, ‘I just want to let you know that I’m really enjoying this.’
“She was really nervous at first. I think it was partially because she didn’t know how she was going to be treated.”
And herein lies the reason so many women never seriously consider a career in automotive: They have no idea what attitudes or barriers they may face.
Gibbs says the open-minded and collaborative environment Roach has fostered helped her overcome those fears quickly.
“It makes it a whole lot less intimidating,” Gibbs says. “I think a lot of people my age that are looking at the trades feel like they have to come in already knowing what they’re doing so that they can prove to the other people in the shop that they belong there. I definitely don’t have that feeling here.”
Automotive dealerships are facing a shortage of technicians, and Roach says dealerships that persist with gender-based assumptions are going to be left behind.
One presumes this includes people like Roach’s colleague on that panel discussion at the auto show, whose comments stirred up more support and solidarity among the women in the audience than he likely intended.
“I was very nervous to go on that panel because I didn’t know what to expect,” Roach said. “And then there was literally a lineup of women to shake my hand.”
Because women, it seems, can handle high-pressure situations just fine — especially when they lift each other up and face them together.