Girls Auto Clinic: Educating and Empowering Women, One Car At a Time

Banks didn’t waste any time moving on her idea. In fact, that same summer, in 2012, she decided to enroll herself in classes to become a certified mechanic. Still juggling her full-time job as an engineer, for a year and a half, Banks became more educated about her passion, attending classes in the evenings.

She makes sure to note that she entered that classroom knowing next to nothing about automotive repairs. She remembers, “I literally walked in there barely just knowing how to open the hood of my car.”

Even with the certification under her belt, Banks also knew she needed some hands-on experience to become the best mechanic she could be.

She also knew she needed to find other female mechanics and identify one who could possibly mentor her.

Problem was, despite her exhaustive search, she was hard pressed to find women mechanics. In fact, she made me aware that less than 2% of mechanics and auto technicians are women.

No wonder it was nearly impossible to find a female mentor in the industry.

Pressing forward, she decided that the gender of her mechanic mentor didn’t matter— she just needed more immediate experience. She found a mentor at a local repair shop and offered her time in exchange for the opportunity to learn. She said, “I need to learn. And I’m here to help you in any way I can. These are my skills, this is what I can help you with, but I will work here for free.” And that’s just what she did – even while still juggling her day job, Banks decided to start apprenticing at a local auto shop with a mechanic who supported her burning desire to empower and educate women with Girls Auto Clinic.

Still desiring even more experience, Banks decided to approach another auto repair shop and offered the same things: her time and her skills – for free. She started off doing admin work, filing papers, and suddenly, after seeing her drive and her desire to learn, the manager of the auto shop asked to hire her.

Understanding how important it was to fully immerse herself in the automotive industry if she was going to ever get her dream off the ground, Banks knew she needed to work every day, full time in this industry.

Two days later, after coming to that realization, she decided to take a chance and quit her lucrative job as an engineer. She says, “It felt good. It felt really good and exciting.” Even more so, because she started getting less excited about her job as an engineer and more excited about this newfound passion and vision for Girls Auto Clinic. It was then when she knew “it was time to go.”