Embrace your femininity. That’s not advice you’d expect to hear in a male-dominated industry like automotive repair, but that’s advice that Kathleen Callahan, owner of Xpertech Auto Repair in Englewood, Florida, has taken to heart in recent years — not just for herself but for her business as well. Callahan’s journey as a shop owner has had quite a few bumps in the road, but with the help of mentors along the way, she’s come out stronger than ever. Now she wants to help other women in the field become the most successful versions of themselves they can be. 

Having grown up the sole girl in a family of three older brothers and five male cousins, Callahan jokes that she was raised for the automotive industry. In addition, her mother worked in television broadcasting, which was a predominantly male space at the time. “I watched her navigate that my entire childhood. So, I think, living in that kind of environment, you tend to be a little tougher and they pick on you and you get a thick skin, but [you] still [learn] to be an empathetic and caring person,” Callahan reflects.

However, she never planned to be in the automotive repair industry. In fact, after high school, Callahan attended advertising school for a year with dreams of working in the arts; however, she soon realized that she couldn’t be creative “on demand.” Even so, that creativity has never left her, and it’s helped her to solve a myriad of problems over the course of her career.

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