Lisa Schomp, a third-generation car dealer and owner-president of Ralph Schomp Automotive in Littleton, has been named one of the “100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry” by Automotive News.
“My grandfather was a car dealer, and my father was also in the business,” Schomp tells Automotive News. “I came from a family of six girls and didn’t see any girls in the business. I thought, ‘Why can’t girls do this, too?’”
It’s the trade journal’s first in-depth look at women leaders in the auto industry since 2005.
Most of the 100 women on the list work for automakers; Schomp is one of 13 on the retail side.
The report says that both the recession and the lure of jobs in other fields are thinning the ranks of women in the business.
In interviews, several of the 100 women featured by Automotive News tell of how they had a tough time breaking into a male-dominated business — and Schomp is no exception.
“When I was 21, I was a greeter and brought coffee and donuts to customers at my father’s Oldsmobile store,” Schomp, 58, said in the interview. “When I told my father I wanted to be a dealer, he said I would have to start from the bottom. But if I was his son, I might have started in the sales or service department.”
She also tells of being just the second woman to attend what was then called the “General Motors’ Dealers’ Son School” in Flint, Mich.
“It was a six-month program, and there were about 220 of us in the class,” she recalls. “When I entered the classroom, the instructor looked at me and said the warranty clerk’s class was down the hall. I told him I was not there for the warranty clerk’s class, and he asked, ‘What do you need, honey?’ I said, ‘I’m here to be a dealer — what are you doing here?’”
Automotive News will host a reception honoring the 100 women on its list Sept. 21 in Detroit.
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Lisa Schomp named a leading woman in auto industry by Automotive News - Denver Business Journal
