New Southern Automotive Women’s Forum plans career outreach with industry growing in region

Southern Automotive Women’s Forum sets conference

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The organizer of the new Southern Automotive Women’s Forum has a message that men in the South can understand: “We’re on the 1 yard line here and we’ve got 99 more to go.”

Nissan’s vice president for manufacturing, Susan Brennan, is leading the new women’s automotive group with a conference set Thursday in Nashville. More than 120 people from across the South — and as far away as Arizona — are registered.

The forum’s primary goal is to promote advancement of women in the region that includes automotive assembly and support plants, Volkswagen’s new $1 billion plant that will start production next year at Chattanooga and Nissan’s national headquarters in Franklin.

Scheduled conference speakers include Ford Motor Co.’s land development corporation chairman and CEO, Donna Inch and Indy 500 driver Lyn St. James.

Brennan said the forum plans to provide “network” support and offer college scholarships and wants to develop an outreach program that shows younger students how math and science learning opens doors to automotive career opportunities.

Brennan serves as a member of the Troy, Mich.-based Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation board and decided to use it as a model after several women asked for a Southern regional women’s group.

She said the forum also wants to assist women with careers at dealerships, in marketing and “all the support functions.”

“The possibilities are endless,” she said.

The foundation’s president, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based RDA Group marketing research executive Kim Ziomek, said the count of women working in the automotive industry, particularly in top executive spots, is “scary small.”

“I think there’s momentum to change that,” said Ziomek, who has automotive clients.

“There are opportunities in the automotive industry for women at every level,” Ziomek said. “There are still good old boy barriers but some of the barriers are also yourself.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that of about 690,000 automotive and parts manufacturing workers nationwide in June, about 178,000, or about 26 percent, were women. That percentage has been fairly constant since the industry in 2000 reported more than 1.3 million employees.

Ziomek said young girls need encouragement toward automotive careers “to get them interested in it.”

She said her father worked for Ford Motor Co. and encouraged her studies. She also grew up tinkering with cars.

“He got me excited about math and science,” she said. “I was just geeked about cars. I loved horsepower.”

Lorraine Schultz, who started Women’s Automotive Association International in 1995, said women have had a tough time reaching the top in the auto industry.

“We still have a glass ceiling,” she said. “Why is it? That’s a good question.”

Schultz said “more American women are being hired by the foreign companies than five or six years ago. They are coming along.”

Mohammed Omar, director of the automotive engineering graduate program at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research, said there are about nine women among about the program’s 65 students. He said there have been a couple of women among about two dozen graduates since the program started in 2006.

Omar said the percentage of women in the graduate automotive program reflects the percentages of women in mechanical engineering and related fields when it started.

“I think the main difficulty is the perception,” he said. “Most people perceive the automotive industry to be an industry dominated by men, with heavy machinery and heavy work.”

Omar said the industry also has opportunities for design, physics and electrical engineering backgrounds.

He sees another reason for automotive companies to cross gender lines in hirings and promotions: “At the end of the day there are both men and women buying the car.”

(This version CORRECTS Corrects in 9th graph to say RDA Group sted RDAS Group.)