Woman Follows Dad’s Footsteps After Training At NJ Auto Repair School

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — There are similarities between social work and repairing diesel engines, according to Victoria Vaughan: taking something apart, learning what happened and building it back up so that it’s “good as new” again. But when it comes to her new career as a diesel technician, Vaughan says she may have found her true calling – and it’s the “best decision she’s ever made.”

Vaughn, 32, a graduate of a 12-month training program at Universal Technical Institute’s campus in Bloomfield, said she began her professional life as a social worker with New York City after earning a degree from the College of Staten Island.

“I wanted to be able to help people and help them fix their lives,” Vaughn recalled. “Although, people are unlike machinery … which is good. People have this thing called free will. I tell them, you need to do this and they say, ‘Nope, not going to do that.’”

After five years, however, Vaughn began to have doubts that she’d picked the right career. That was when she thought about making a big switch – partly inspired by her father, a diesel technician who used his career to put a roof over his family’s heads and get them through school.

“Social work wasn’t working out, and I needed something that was more versatile,” Vaughn remembered. “So, I said, ‘You know what, we're going to give this a try.’”

Vaughn finished her courses at UTI-Bloomfield in April 2022, immediately landing a job at Foley Cat in Piscataway as a transmission technician for heavy equipment.

“I absolutely love it,” Vaughn said. “It gives me a chance to take something apart, find what happened and how to make it better. That ties into what I used to love to do as social worker – get down to the nitty-gritty and build something back up, so it's good as new again.”

It’s a job with a future, according to UTI-Bloomfield. Diesel technicians earned a median salary of $48,690 in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment is expected to grow about 4 percent annually over the next decade, with about 28,000 job openings projected each year.

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DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Vaughn recently returned to the Bloomfield UTI campus to speak with students about what it’s like to be a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field.

“Women are starting to become more prevalent in it,” she said. “Slowly but surely, it's starting to change.”

“I've always gone along with guys more than I have women,” Vaughn quipped. “I’m basically the little sister that nobody wanted, or, with some of my younger co-workers, the mother they have already – but now they're stuck with at work, too.”

Vaughan said she hopes speaking to students will help young women realize they can do whatever they want, including jobs like diesel technicians.

“Many of my co-workers are in their 60s and close to retiring,” she said. “We need to bring new blood into the industry.”

And just because you’re a diesel technician doesn’t mean you have to “stop being feminine,” she says.

“If you want to get your nails done, you most certainly can,” she told students at UTI-Bloomfield. “You can still be pretty while doing this job. There's nothing saying you have to look like a grease monkey if you’re doing this job. You can keep your hair long; you can keep your nails and wear jewelry.”

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