Automotive repair has historically been a male-dominated field, but that’s been changing drastically over the past few decades. More women are making waves in collision repair, from the shop floor to the corporate office.
Crash Champions has many women in leadership positions who have had to work especially hard to accomplish what they’ve done and get to where they are now. Check out the stories of four women who are shaping the future of this nationwide brand.
Striving to be the Best
Heidi Foster is the senior vice president of operations of the West at Crash Champions and has 20 years of experience in her industry—14 specifically working with body shops. Foster was previously a student athlete at Purdue University. When she graduated in 2003, she came home and did private lessons, held clinics and considered becoming a coach. Eventually, however, her mother pushed Foster into getting a call center job at the insurance company she worked at when she was 22.
Foster remembered disliking the position initially, but she realized she enjoyed helping people.
“That’s ultimately how I fell into cars,” Foster says. “I love the people aspect of it, of just … being there for them during this time—times of crisis, in some cases.”
After going on to work at a body shop, becoming a national director of training at Service King, and then joining Crash, she feels she is setting an example for other women in the industry.
“That’s paving the way for a lot of women to not just think, ‘I’m just going to work the front, and answer the phones.’ You’re not limited to that role anymore,” she says.
When she first entered the collision repair industry, she struggled to gain respect from those working around her. Foster remembers there being no women in the shop and the men showing no interest in working with her.
“They would make comments like, ‘You wear dresses to work. This is a body shop, you’re not supposed to wear dresses.’ But I’m dealing with customers—pretty high-end customers, too—so although I’m going to get dirty in the back, I have to look good for my customers,” she recounts.
Foster took it upon herself to befriend one technician in the shop and worked with him to educate herself. She was able to write better sheets and proved herself, gradually gaining the respect that she deserved.
“I equipped myself, I had to be better,” Foster says. “And I had to be better than the guys, not just be better at what I was doing currently. I had to be the best.”
A Desire to Help
Lisa Jarvis is Crash Champions’ director of operations for Montana. She has about 15 years of experience, and helps managers set goals, address issues and provides support for them.
The best part of her job is “getting to help the people” during a chaotic situation.
“This is one of the most stressful times they will have in their life,” she says. “You know, their mode of transportation is rendered unable to be used—and especially if you’re in Montana, we don’t really have public transportation. You have to have your car.”
Jarvis had to work hard but had superiors who didn’t recognize that work. Eventually, she says she was “fortunate enough to have a couple bosses that were really great, too, with [saying] like, ‘You’re so good at your job, what else can you do?’”
Being able to show her kids that hard work pays off is what has driven her through her career. What keeps her going is feeling that she is helping customers and getting to work with and support talented team members.
“I mean, it feels good to help people, you know? And people like to be helped,” she says.
Taking a Chance
Natalie Zajc has worked in the collision repair industry for eight years and is currently Crash Champions’ vice president of business development. She works on a team that oversees all of Crash’s national carrier relationships and any incoming revenue sources for the company.
Prior to her current position, Zajc did business development for a medical company before taking some time off work when she had children. She then met Crash Champions CEO Matt Ebert in 2014 through a mutual friend. Ebert only had two locations and was eager to expand.
“He pretty much said, ‘I’ll take a chance on you; I don’t know if I can afford you, but if you pay for yourself, you can stick around.’ He gave me a box of business cards and sent me out to find work for him,” Zajc says about working with Ebert.
From there, Zajc moved up through the company, starting in outside sales and marketing, to director of business development, then recently being promoted to vice president of business development.
Zajc is part of the first generation of her family to attend college and was inspired by how her mother worked and always wanted better for her. She strives to do the same now for her own children, and to mentor her two daughters “to be more than what I am.”
A Career of Learning
Mariah Sampson is Crash Champions’ brand manager and grew up around cars as the daughter of a body shop owner. When the company she worked for was sold to Crash about a year ago, she joined their team to do marketing.
Even though Sampson grew up surrounded by discussions of car repair, upon entering the industry she quickly realized she still had much to learn.
She took it upon herself to attend classes held by the Montana Collision Repair Association and the Society of Collision Repair Specialists, which she says provided a great opportunity for her to learn. Those classes made a substantial difference in her industry trajectory.
What motivates Sampson is working with good teammates to help people that have been in accidents by “being able to turn a very tragic experience around for someone.”
“For a lot of people your vehicle is either your largest or second largest investment,” Sampson explains, “so they’re putting a lot of trust into us to make sure their vehicle is properly and safely repaired. They’re putting their families in those cars; they’re driving down the road every day to work.
The biggest advice given by the four women is to be ready to prove yourself, especially if you are another woman entering the industry, and to always be willing to learn from others.
Jarvis says that supervisors like Foster were key to spotting her potential and helping pave a path to greater roles.
Now she tries to instill that same attitude with those she supervises, by asking, “You want to be better, you want to do something great? Great, how are we going to make that happen?”
