General Motors is supporting a scholarship program organized by its female dealers to bring more women into their ranks.
The GM Foundation pledged $10,000 in seed money earlier this month for the first-ever female scholarship program established by GM Women's Retail Network, said Montana Chevrolet dealer Karen Miskimins. The network recently sent pledge cards to all of GM's female dealers in a further fund-raising effort.
The ranks of GM's women dealer operators has fluctuated this decade from roughly 240 to 270, but is now at just over 200, said Miskimins, also a member of GM's Women Dealers Advisory Council.
"We want to increase our numbers," she said. "Studies are finding that women make the majority of decisions when a family buys a new car."
Indeed, at a national dealer breakfast meeting in Orlando earlier this year, GM's Susan Docherty, formerly VP-marketing in the U.S., told a group of female retailers that women influence 85% of all new vehicle purchases and control 51% of this nation's buying power.
The group will start taking scholarship applications in January and expect to announce the recipients next May. Each scholarship is expected to total $5,000 for the one-year, full-time program at an accredited or recognized institution for auto retail or service management. Miskimins said the number of scholarships offered this year will depend on how fundraising goes.
"We want to encourage young females, whether they're in high school or college now, or in a non-traditional school, to apply," she said.
Applicants will be evaluated on their academic performance, community service and work experience. Other required criteria include U.S. Citizenship and a letter of recommendation from a dealer.
More information is available at http://gmsac.com or e-mail wrnscholarshipinfo@gmsac.com.
GM was the first carmaker to launch a program to recruit and train female dealers. That was in 2001, when the company had 190 women-owned franchises. The automaker appointed 111 female dealers in the first four years of the program.
"We lost quite a few women dealers with the transition," Miskimins said, referring to GM's slashing of its dealer ranks over the past year.
The automaker originally wanted to cut just over 2,000 retailers from the 6,000. But this month, after Congressional-approved arbitration, GM said this month it would have a total some 4,500 dealers as of Nov, 1.
Comments