Toronto, Ontario – August 7, 2019 – In 2016, autobody shop owner Hilary Noack launched “Auto Body Gals,” an online Facebook group designed for women looking to connect and expand in the automotive industry.
Despite being online for just three years, the group has already amassed a large following. With nearly 1,000 members Noack believes the group is a great place where women “can share pictures of [they] work, ask tech questions, and get advice from other ladies.”
It’s no surprise that this initiative came from Hilary Noack. Noack is the owner of an all-female auto shop owner called “Ink N Iron” and is a proud supporter of women in the trades.
Collision Repair spoke with Noack earlier this summer following her four-year anniversary of owning Ink N Iron. It was then that she told us the connection she made with other women in the industry that inspired her to launch a business of her own.
“When I was working I started to meet more and more women and just like me,” Noack said. “Hearing their stories and meeting girls who started in this trade and quit because they couldn’t get a job or got harassed, that’s kind of where the idea [for the shop] came from. I wanted to take this bad-ass group of ladies and have a place where we do a lot of training, co-op and give other young women the confidence and skills to send them out to this world.”
Not only does Noack hope to connect women in the industry through her Facebook group, but through her franchise that she has been developing to launch in the near-time future.
“When I opened, and even now, I get messages and resumes from girls all over saying “I wish there was something like this in my state.” Me not being a business owner, I learned a lot of hard lessons by failures, so if I can make a package and streamline it to someone so they can be ahead of where I was when I first opened Ink and Iron, it could build this awesome sisterhood.”
For more information on Auto Body Gals, or to join the group, check out their Facebook page here.
