In Her Words:
Before You Judge Someone, Learn Their Story
By: Jill Tuggle
After more than a decade volunteering with women affected by sexual exploitation, Jill Tuggle has learned how rarely assumptions resemble reality. She challenges us to look beyond someone’s behavior, circumstances or mistakes and get curious about the story underneath. From strip-club outreach to collision-shop culture, Jill explores dignity, accountability and the difference between excusing harmful choices and understanding what shaped them. Because real leadership does not reduce people to their worst moment—it recognizes who they could still become.
There are conversations I have in my personal life that rarely make their way into conversations about collision repair. This is one of them.
For more than a decade, I’ve volunteered with an organization that serves women who have experienced sexual exploitation – some have been trafficked, and some dance in strip clubs. A handful have figured out how to escape that life, while others are still trying to figure out how.
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The Relationship Architect
By: Chasidy Rae Sisk
Marketing may attract attention, but Micki Woods knows it cannot rescue weak leadership, unhealthy culture or broken trust. After owning a shop, surviving the 2008 recession and sitting in the chair where payroll becomes personal, Micki built a career helping collision businesses become stronger from the inside out. She shares the hard-earned lessons behind her people-first approach—and why the healthiest, most resilient businesses are built around relationships rather than transactions.
For nearly two decades, Micki Woods (Micki Woods Marketing) has helped collision repair businesses become healthier, more successful companies. Through her consulting, speaking, writing and podcasting, she challenges shop owners to think differently about leadership, workplace culture, customer interactions and sustainable growth. Having owned a collision repair business herself, every recommendation Micki makes comes from firsthand experience – she’s sat in the owner’s chair and faced many of the same challenges as the shop owners she coaches today.
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Every Vehicle Is a Puzzle
Madison Warren Trusts the Process
By: Chasidy Rae Sisk
At 18, Madison Warren is already a Toyota- and Lexus-certified estimator, a national SkillsUSA champion and a young professional determined to raise the standard of collision repair. Her path from shy freshman to skilled repair planner was built through mentorship, preparation and one lesson she refused to forget: trust the process. Madison shares how OEM procedures, customer advocacy and one disappointing competition finish became pieces of a much bigger—and remarkably promising—career puzzle.
Some people stumble into their career path – Madison Warren found hers by trusting the process.
When she first stepped into Unaka High School’s collision repair program, she couldn’t name every part on a vehicle. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find a Toyota and Lexus-certified estimator, a national SkillsUSA champion in Collision Damage Appraisal and a young professional with a clear vision for where she wants to take the industry.
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Q&A with Madison
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“Hear Me Out:” Jill Tuggle Proves You Don’t Have to Know It All to Lead
By: Chasidy Rae Sisk
Jill Tuggle’s career changed every time someone convinced her to “hear me out.” From delivering wheels to leading the Auto Body Association of Texas, her unconventional path proves that leadership does not require knowing everything—it requires curiosity, collaboration and the confidence to ask the right people. Jill opens up about loss, faith, imposter syndrome, advocacy and the relationships that helped her recognize her value. Fair warning: her actual job description may still require the word “miracle worker.” Read More
When asked what she does as Executive Director of the Auto Body Association of Texas (ABAT), Jill Tuggle laughs because the answer is anything but simple: “Everything…and everything in between everything!”
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Q&A with Jill
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Shelly Jones: Grounded, Glossed and Building the Future of Collision Repair
By: Chasidy Rae Sisk
Shelly Jones did not enter collision repair through a perfectly paved career lane. She took the scenic route through waste management, sales, operations, education, workforce development, and eventually helped build one of the industry’s most ambitious technician pipeline initiatives. In this Polished DisruptHER feature, Shelly talks about career pivots, family, mentorship, student success, and the steady leadership behind Collision Engineering Career Alliance. Her story proves that building the future of collision repair takes strategy, relationships, integrity, and a willingness to create the roadmap as you go. Read More
From selling commercial trash contracts to helping build one of the collision industry’s most ambitious workforce development initiatives from the ground up, Shelly Jones has never followed a conventional career path – and that’s exactly what makes her story so compelling. Today, she serves as National Workforce Development Director for the Collision Engineering Career Alliance (CECA), where she leads the operations side of the rapidly-growing organization.
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Q&A with Shelly
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Jaelyn Walker Beats Panels and Breaks Barriers
Driven, Determined, Unstoppable: Jaelyn Walker Beats Panels and Breaks Barriers
By: Chasidy Rae Sisk
Jaelyn Walker grew up around mechanics, JDM culture, loud engines, and Puerto Rican pride, but she found her lane in the cosmetic side of the industry. Now working as a non-structural body technician while training toward structural repair, Jaelyn is building skill, confidence, and a future that does not fit anyone’s outdated assumptions. In this Primed DisruptHER feature, she talks about mentors, family support, career goals, shop challenges, and why women belong anywhere panels need shaping and expectations need breaking. Read More
Growing up in a family of mechanics, cars were always part of Jaelyn Walker’s world. Originally from New Jersey, she was surrounded by the culture of JDM cars – loud music, louder engines and a strong sense of pride in her Puerto Rican roots. While many members of her family focused on mechanical work, Jaelyn found herself drawn to the cosmetic side of the industry instead. “My family made them run; I wanted to make them look pretty.”
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Petra Schroeder Redefines Grit: Silk Scarves and Soft-Spoken Eloquence
By: Chasidy Rae Sisk
Petra Schroeder is known throughout the collision repair world as the Collisionista, but her legacy cannot be contained in a single title, scarf, language, or boardroom introduction. With nearly six decades connected to the industry, Petra’s story is one of reinvention, curiosity, global influence, cultural fluency, and a kind of leadership that does not need to shout to command the room. Her strength is not packaged in the predictable costume of grit. It arrives polished, elegant, soft-spoken, and absolutely immovable. This Dynasty DisruptHER feature follows Petra’s journey through corporate spaces, industry associations, volunteer leadership, mentorship, and the many connections she…
At first glance, “Collisionista” Petra Schroeder seems almost too elegant for collision repair. Draped in silk scarves with flawless posture and a voice softened by decades of refinement, she carries herself with the sort of effortless sophistication you’d expect to encounter at an art gallery opening or a diplomatic dinner party – not walking the floor of an industry event or in a shop, surrounded by paint fumes, frame racks and body filler dust. But spend five minutes talking to Petra, and it becomes abundantly clear that beneath her polished exterior lives a woman forged from steel.
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In Her Words:
Lowered Voice, Stronger Boundaries
By: Petra Schroeder
Petra Schroeder’s voice may be calm, but her boundaries are anything but weak. In this thoughtful In HER Words column, Petra reflects on respect, cultural differences, harassment, communication, and the quiet authority that comes from consistency. She shares how being believed shaped her, why “no” should never require negotiation, and how speaking up does not always have to mean raising your voice. Polished does not mean passive, and Petra proves that strength can arrive softly and still change the room.
I didn’t come into this conversation expecting to revisit pieces of my life I had long since filed away. That’s the honest truth.
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Breaking the Brass* Ceiling: Jaime Shewbridge Welds “Like a Girl” (Don’t You Wish You Could Too?)
Q&A with Jaime
In Her Words
Warning: Explicit language – May be offensive to some readers
Your Voice Matters, So Use It!
By: Kristen Felder
Collision repair is the only industry I know, and although I love what I do, I fully realize it’s not pretty for women here. It’s full of double standards, pitfalls and traps. It really sucks to be a woman in this industry a lot of the time.
And it all starts with the messaging we receive about being a woman, especially if we’re going to work in a male-dominated space. We are told to be nice, to get along and earn our place – if we keep our heads down and just do a great job, people will eventually see how wonderful we are.
That’s total bullshit! It’s never going to happen that way. I’m sorry, but we are always going to be women, no matter how much we develop a thick skin, toughen up or just deal with it. That’s what women have been doing for too many years, and has it worked? Hell no! Women don’t need to have a thick skin or accommodate men just because there are more of them in this industry.
But it can be helpful to create a persona that pushes a lot of the nonsense away from you. I learned that lesson early in my career, though I do it very differently than most women.
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Kristen Felder:
The Take-No-Shit & Offer No Apologies DisruptHER
Kristen Felder was not introduced to collision repair later in life. She was practically born into it, with a childhood spent in the body shop and a work ethic shaped by sanding, repairing, arguing, learning, and refusing to back down. In this Dynasty DisruptHER feature, Glossed & Gritty spotlights one of the most recognizable, respected,…
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Cassandra Thibeault
Cassandra Thibeault’s path into collision repair did not start with a perfect plan, a polished resume, or a neat little “how I found my purpose” bow tied around it. It started with a woman who once dreamed of fashion design, found out sewing was absolutely not her love language, left retail management behind, stepped into…
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