WINNOSKI, Vt. (WCAX) – March is Women’s History Month, shining a light on women’s contributions to history, culture, and society. One Vermont woman is standing out in the male-dominated field of car building.
Dusti Parker has always been fascinated by cars, even at a young age. She says it runs in the family.
“They were into racing — the local stock car racing tracks — was basically a hobby for them,” Parker said.
It’s become a passion for Parker. She’s worked around cars all of her life, and even though the 69-year-old is retired, she isn’t pumping the breaks on her hot rod hobby. “I enjoyed working on them, I enjoyed building them, but it didn’t come without the hard knocks. It’s a hard field to break into as a woman,” she said.
Parker says it took years of work to get through to a mostly male-dominated space. “I, as a woman, feel very accomplished in doing this because I am accepted by a lot of men in this field. They know who I am. I come, I go to a car show — they know,” she said.
And over the last decade, she says she’s been to hundreds of car shows where men no longer look at her differently. “The challenges that I faced were tough but I was stubborn and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer,” Parker said.
Parker has been in the car industry for about 40 years and she has been working on a yellow Mustang for seven. She hopes to inspire other women to not shy away from their passion, even if that includes building cars, like her. “A woman can do anything she wants to if she puts her mind to it and goes forward. You gotta want to do it and it’s not for every woman. It can be tough, it’s dirty, you can get greasy and dirty but you’re going to want to do it,” Parker said.
Not only does Parker participate in car shows but she puts on shows herself. Her second annual Essex Car Show will be on September 8th.
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