Given her deep roots at the place, it makes sense that Terica Buckner would end up as the owner of a venerable Southeast Portland auto repair shop. She took the helm Jan. 1.

Now 40, Buckner began working at Hawthorne Auto Clinic when she was a 17-year-old high school student.

She never left.

While most young people like the freedom that comes from driving a car, Buckner always wanted to know what was happening mechanically under the hood. As a student at Portland’s Benson Polytechnic High School, Buckner signed up for an auto repair class.

A few weeks in, Buckner was hooked and told her instructor she wanted a career as a mechanic. He said she needed real-world experience, so he helped get her an internship with the repair shop that she now owns at 4307 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.

“I did shop cleanup,” she said. “I recycled oil filters, filled fluids for the technicians and watched them working on cars.”

By chance, Buckner ended up at the perfect repair shop for a young woman starting in a business typically dominated by men.

Liz Dally, company president and a co-owner with her husband, Jim Houser, was one of the first members of Portland’s Association of Women in Automotive. The group was started by a few women mechanics to help women who wanted to break into the field.

Dally, who grew up in Pittsburgh, was always interested in tools and making things in the basement of her family’s home. She tried enrolling in a shop and drafting class in high school, but she was denied simply because she was a girl.

“This was in 1965 when there were no laws saying a girl had to have equal access,” she said. “So, I went in the opposite direction.”

She earned a scholarship to Reed College. She was living in the upstairs unit of a Southeast Portland four-plex and met Houser, who lived downstairs. They eventually married and now have two adult children.

“I earned a degree in political science, but I couldn’t find anything I really wanted to do with the degree,” she said. “Jim and I had a friend who’d started a co-op auto repair shop, so Jim and I joined. I had a knack and learned with the help of other people and books. There were no night classes to learn the trade back then.”

When Dally applied for jobs at Portland-area car dealerships she said bosses were “incredulous” that a woman wanted to be a mechanic.

“They wanted me to work in the office,” she said. “I applied at one shop and the man held up a power valve and asked what it was. When I told him, he said there were no openings.”

She eventually was hired as a mechanic at Hawthorne Auto Clinic. Three years later, in 1983, the owner said he was going to sell the business.

“I was sick of trying to convince people I knew how to fix cars,” said Dally. “It would be easier to own a shop. Jim and I bought it. It was just the two of us doing all the work. Then we grew.”

Terica Buckner holds her daughter, Emrys, in the shop area of Hawthorne Auto Clinic. She bought the business in January.

In Buckner, Dally and Houser saw the chance to help a young woman who reminded them of Dally.

They sponsored her, paying her to work in their shop for two years while she attended Mount Hood Community College to earn an associate degree in auto repair. When Buckner graduated, they hired her as a shop technician.

“It is so satisfying when you have a broken car, do a few tests and get it working again,” said Buckner. “A car has so many systems to learn.”

When the front office had an opening for a customer service adviser, Buckner asked Houser and Dally if she could have the job so she could learn more about the business.

“She was great,” said Houser. “She could talk with customers with confidence because she knew all about working on cars. She could explain to the customer what was wrong with the car and what was needed to fix it.”

When the company bookkeeper retired eight years ago, Buckner applied for the job. Houser and Dally helped pay for Buckner to earn a business degree at the University of Phoenix while she continued to work at the shop.

“She was good at everything she did here,” Houser said.

Last year, he and his wife decided to retire.

“I’m 73 and Liz is 70,” said Houser. “It was time.”

Buckner said she wanted to buy the shop.

And it made sense.

“I got into the business because I wanted to fix cars,” Dally said. “She was interested in cars, and the business.”

Houser called Buckner the “perfect candidate” to take over.

“What a natural fit,” Houser said. “She had all the skills in place, knew all the customers and employees.”

Buckner said taking over ownership has been “nerve wracking.”

“I am taking on incredible responsibility,” she said. “Not just for my future, but for the 10 employees.”

Buckner and her husband, Andrew, live in Vancouver and are the parents of an 18-month-old daughter. Buckner is the family breadwinner, and her husband is a stay-at-home father.

Buckner said that adds additional pressure. She wants to make sure the business grows so she can pay herself a salary and cover the rent and employee salaries.

Natalie Breece is a sevice technician at Hawthorne Auto Clinic. (Photo by Samantha Swindler/staff)Samantha Swindler

But business is good, she said, and many of the customers have been coming to the shop since she first started working there. She is negotiating a deal with Houser and Dally to buy the building as part of a five-year lease option.

Dally made it possible for someone like Buckner to get into the business, one in which women make up less than 1 percent of all the auto mechanics in the metro area, said Sarah Heidler, past president of Portland’s Association of Women in Automotive. She estimated there are likely no more than 24 women mechanics working in the area.

Buckner wants to help women the same way Dally helped her. The front office staff at her shop are all women, and Buckner has sponsored a woman who works as a technician while attending Mount Hood Community College.

Buckner said it’s the right thing to do.

“It’s rare in the auto business to have a woman be the owner of a shop,” she said. “A lot of women are not encouraged to get into the business. Women can be great technicians. You have to not know just mechanics, but computers. This is a highly skilled job.”

When she steps into her business each morning, Buckner said she’s content.

“This is the only job I’ve had,” Buckner said. “It’s surreal that I own it.”

--Tom Hallman Jr; thallman@oregonian.com; 503-221-8224; @thallmanjr

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