Automakers reach out to women as car designers of the future

DETROIT - Katie Slater, a soft-spoken, ponytail-sporting 17-year-old, is attracted to fast cars and powerful engines.

As a 14-second, 100-meter sprinter at Cabrini High School in Allen Park, Mich., Katie says she thinks cars should run and look as sleek and fast as her sprint.

Chelsea Ramirez, 17, of Plantation, Fla., is more about luxury and less about practicality, even though her own wheels, a 2005 Honda Civic, are famously functional.

Meet the car buyers and designers of the future. According to Ford Motor Co. research, women influence 85 percent of all car-buying decisions and purchase 45 percent of all vehicles, Ford spokeswoman Marisa Bradley said.

Despite that, women are still the minority in the design workplace, something the industry is trying to change. Women make up 39 percent of all designers in all industrial trades, including furniture, autos, boats and offices. A further breakdown wasn't available from Ford, which cited proprietary reasons.

"It's really just getting the word out that this type of work exists and that there are a lot of different opportunities," said Susan Lampinen, group chief designer at Ford North America.

Ford employs more than 700 designers in the United States, England, Germany, Australia, Asia's Pacific region and South America.

"People who work here are of all sorts of different backgrounds: interior design, fashion, transportation design and crafts," said Lampinen.

Lampinen is happy to serve as a mentor in a field that hasn't always been friendly to women.

"I had an instructor tell me that I couldn't make it as an auto designer," she said, adding that the comment served only as motivation.

At 38, Lampinen has influenced the design of numerous brands and show cars, including Lincoln, Mercury, Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz.

Ford's strategy to attract more women to design includes a $10,000 donation it made to Detroit's College for Creative Studies, which used the money for scholarships for high school girls to encourage enrollment in auto design classes. Scholarships ranged from $1,600 - the cost of the summer class - to at least $400.

Ford also reaches out to girls through a high school program in the Pontiac, Mich., school district. For the past five years, Ford designers have been paired with students from seventh grade through high school to teach the basics of sketching and rendering in weekly sessions. The program attracts between 30 and 35 students, and 30 percent of those are girls.

General Motors Corp. has a similar program through CCS and Detroit Public Schools that links art students with designers to create designs that appeal to young drivers. But Ford's program is the only program known to specifically target girls.

Like the auto companies, CCS also has an interest in attracting more women. Last year, the school graduated no female and 12 male designers in automotive design, said CCS Director of Continuing Education Carla Gonzalez. This year, it will graduate three women and 17 men.

The Ford scholarship offer drew 51 applications from girls - it typically gets 30 from both boys and girls for the summer course. It also resulted in the enrollment of 16 girls for the course that started this week, up from seven last year. Nineteen boys enrolled this year.

The scholarships drew many high school girls from Michigan but also Florida and New Jersey. Among them is Shelby Hatfield, 16, of Chesterfield Township.

She wants to design a car whose interior you can change to match its urban environment, whether you drive in Japan, New York or California.

"I think of cars as intimate spaces, and I think of every car that I come in contact with as a possible extension of myself," Shelby said.

Shelby cut out magazine ads that caught her eye - pictures of lithe, athletic women tumbling through the air, a landscape of iridescent light, a sleek, silver Chrysler Crossfire.

She said she's tired of the sameness that afflicts the current choices of SUVs and family cars. In her view, cars should look bold, like a Volkswagen Beetle or a sleek Chevrolet Corvette.

Even though she was obsessed with the Crossfire, she's now all about a yellow Lotus that she has seen around town.

"A car needs to look fast even when it's parked," she said about her ideal vehicle.

Boys are very much a part of this course. Kya Schultz, 17, of Detroit welcomed the added diversity.

"We need to have something for everybody," said Kya, whose dream car is a Mercury Marauder. "We need muscle cars in America, luxury for the Europeans." And, he said, there needs to be something that appeals to women.

And what exactly is that? That is what the auto industry wants to find out by bringing more women up through the designer ranks.

"There is a reason why we buy certain vehicles," said Lampinen of Ford, whose dream cars include the Jaguar E-Type, the Ferrari Dino and a Volvo S60, her current ride. "I love the way it drives, its design.

"Women have different needs. Women carry purses. They might have to put a child seat in the back. Storage is important."

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NOTABLE FEMALE AUTO DESIGNERS

-Anne Asensio, 44. A native of France, she is executive director of interior design, quality and brand character at General Motors. She is responsible for the design and quality of vehicle interiors and the brand character of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac and Saturn.

-Chelsia Lau, 39. She is Ford chief designer of sport utility vehicles. Her work includes the 2007 Expedition and the 2007 Navigator. She has a diploma in product design from the Lee Wai Lee Technical Institute in Hong Kong and a B.S. in transportation design from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

-Diane Allen, 46. She is design manager at Nissan Design America Inc. in San Diego. Allen manages studio operations, design and developing vehicle programs. Recently, she managed the design development of Nissan's first full-size truck series: the Nissan Titan, Armada SUV and Infiniti QX56 SUV. Allen also led the design team in the global design development for the 350Z sports coupe and the Infiniti M45 luxury sedan.

-Susan Lampinen, 38. She is chief group lead designer at Ford. She is responsible for Ford North America, including the Ford, Mercury and Lincoln brands.

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(c) 2006, Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.