It’s easy to say the right, common, expected words about women in collision repair, especially amid a tech shortage.
But some different words emphasize real-world experience, teaching acumen, and results.
“Young women generally excel in the program,” says Amy Bogner, who teaches in a high school-level votech program near Buffalo, N.Y., and who has logged 19 years in collision work as a technician and painter, among other duties. Last year’s two top grads from Erie 2 Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES in Fredonia were female.
“Right off the bat, she has a better eye for color,” said Chicago body shop owner John Melendez, referring to Samantha McCauley. “She’s put me in my place, the way she tints, the way she works it. She’s teaching the apprentice painters how to do it better.” McCauley came to JDM Collision after 10 years in two college-level teaching slots in the area.
At every level and in postings of all kinds — teaching high school or college, directing these programs, I-CAR instructor, snagging scholarships and awards, mentoring apprentices on production floors and working in body shops themselves — women bring real-world results to shop ops.
Can, do, teach
Amy Bogner wrote the book on technician training. Literally. She authored the latest workbook for the tech ed manual, Auto Collision Repair and Refinishing, published by Goodheart-Wilcox. This flows from the teaching, indeed upgrades it as far as street cred: those who can, do and teach. All alongside chairing an advisory board for training at SUNY-Erie Community College, in the State University of New York system and from which Bogner graduated in 2006.
“Since becoming a teacher, I have seen an increased female student enrollment,” partly because, Bogner said, “young women feel more comfortable seeing one teaching the program.”
One-fourth of her 35 juniors and seniors are women, including one third of the younger cohort, meaning this cadre is growing, and the percentages definitely top what’s inside an average body shop.
“They’re very driven,” Bogner said. From her time in this field, she thinks it could possibly be due to feeling the need to prove themselves, though she isn’t sure. Either sex of course is capable of ambition, which some suggested to Autobody News can emerge earlier in female students. At the least there’s no lack of it, when women want to work in collision.
“There’s 100% carryover to shops,” Bogner said. “A million percent.” Her experience is high intentionality in female students pursuing internships and jobs “on their own, before they even graduated. Their work ethic is people who show up, are on-time, take initiative, and learn as you go.”
Blending in and creating change
Melendez has also known McCauley for years, including in the latter’s time at Lincoln College of Technology and Kennedy-King College.
“Today, I have a person who is that sharp and does beautiful work,” Melendez said.
McCauley told Autobody News earlier this year that a key to her mentoring of apprentice painters is giving them actual work. “I’ve heard horror stories of interns getting nothing but car washing,” she said. She was instrumental in a five-hour, in-shop experience in early December for about a dozen students hosted by JDM Collision and I-CAR.
Melendez said seeing women in shops doesn’t sit well with many in the industry, but this is changing. Slowly. Students that day were male (change takes time) but McCauley led them through their painting paces (proof positive that change is already happening).
“When we did that career day, she was in her element,” Melendez said. “Working with the kids, inside and spraying … she’s caring, and the kids caught on to that, and what she was teaching.” Students tried out the new paint systems at JDM, including a curing robot.
Women are building momentum
Like Bogner and McCauley, tech teacher Amber Scotti at Michigan’s Lapeer County Education Technology Center graduated from a high school program, worked in body shops, turned to training.
Laura Lozano, leading Contra Costa College’s collision repair program, in August started a three-year term on the I-CAR Board of Directors. She began as a student and opened a body shop with her dad, Contra Costa said in a press release, before teaching.
We sense a pattern here: experience and leadership for results.
Speaking of I-CAR, Olivia Peterson repped for them at SEMA 2025 Show this year, presenting in two ADAS sessions. She’s an instructor trainee; CREF says she was a CTE student three years ago.
Speaking of SEMA and CREF, Bogner nabbed a $25,000 Benchmark award at the 2024 show for her program. Speaking of scholarships and grants, a local report had North Dakota State College of Science student Isabella Roll getting a $2,500 scholarship from a BASF Refinish and TechForce Foundation Techs for Tomorrow, and a trip to SEMA.
Five of 700 applicants won and her collision engineering technology program got a $10,000 Benchmark grant.
There’s no good reason to invest in people who can’t deliver—and these women deliver. The tide isn’t just turning but running swifter across education, training, and the shop floor. Female techs aren’t tokens and they’re not there for show.
They also aren’t nepo babies, but that’ll change in time, too.
“My family did not own a shop,” Bogner said, comparing her drive to any quality creative effort. “I always liked working with my hands, learning how things work, taking them apart and putting them back together.”
Bogner’s students run 25% female; a collision repair and refinishing set-up in British Columbia has eight of 17. Echoing and integrating Melendez and Bogner’s eye for color and commitment to quality work, a student called body-shopping, “an art form … how some people paint, and some people do pottery: for us, it’s cars.”
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