ASHLEY STALNECKER | Staff WriterWhen Aided Balbuena enrolled in an engine technology class at Technical College High School in Chester County, a male student asked her why she didn’t switch into the cosmetology program.
Balbuena ignored his comment and others questioning her capabilities. Though at first she didn’t know how to identify a wrench or a ratchet, she quickly learned and now uses these tools while making her mark as a woman in the male-dominated field.
Of the 926,000 automotive service technicians and mechanics in the United States in 2022, only 26,854, or 2.9%, were women, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Balbuena said. “Prove them wrong.”
Balbuena said she feels welcomed as the only woman in her automotive class at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. The college recently received an award for empowering women in the technical fields and Thaddeus Stevens President Pedro Rivera says it strives to continue supporting its female cohort by hiring more women teachers and through its Women’s Center that opened earlier this year.
“It feels like a family,” said Balbuena, who served as student government president at Thaddeus in the 2022-23 school year. “They’re all looking out for me – they don’t let me just fly by.”
Several of the men in Balbuena’s family, most of whom hail from Mexico, are auto mechanics.
“In our culture, when a woman goes into a guy’s field or a male-dominated field, it is very strange for them to go into,” Balbuena said. “My mom was like ‘that’s a male-dominated field, how are you going to go into that field?’”
Her mom relented and now Balbuena is an advocate for women in male-dominated fields. One day, she said she’d like to open up a shop where she can teach women the basic necessities of maintaining a vehicle.
Balbuena’s automotive instructor, Jeff Gienec, started working at Thaddeus Stevens a year ago but has 17 years of experience teaching at technology schools. Throughout his career, he said, the number of women in male-dominated fields has increased.
“When I first started, you didn’t see any women at all,” Gienec said.
Aided Balbuena studies automotive technology at Thaddeus Stevens [photos]
Aided Balbuena of Kennett Square, studies automotive technology at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.
She served as Student Governance Council President at Thaddeus in 2022 and performed her first four-wheel alignment this week on her personal car.
There is increasing enrollment and demand for career and technology fields, particularly at Thaddeus Stevens.
She is instructed this year by Jeff Gieniec who was formerly at HACC and has been in the automotive industry for decades.
Aided Balbuena, bottom, works with Logan Doll at Thaddeus Stevens Transportation Center to perform a four-wheel alignment on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. This was Aided’s first time performing an alignment.
While men dominate technical fields like auto mechanics, Gienec said women are often the most successful in his classes as they’re dutiful in completing homework and training.
“The women have to work harder and they have to prove themselves to the guys, but it’s interesting to watch,” Gienec said. “I get a kick out of it because these guys think they know everything but the girls are the ones that actually know it.”
In Rivera’s tenure, the college has made several strides in supporting women like Balbuena who’ve chosen to pursue a male-dominated technical field.
Earlier this year, the Central Penn Business Journal and Lehigh Valley Business named Thaddeus Stevens an Empowering Women organization.
But the college has room to grow, said Rivera, as only 174 of its 1,451 students, or 12%, are women.
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ASHLEY STALNECKER | Staff Writer
