Palmer’s Klunder-Edmonds nation’s second female Master Shop Owner

PALMER — Volkswagens, Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, Audis and Fiats of all ages consume the periphery of Edmonds Import Auto, across the street from the Alaska State Fairgrounds in Palmer, but according to owner Tobi Klunder-Edmonds, this is a ‘light day.’

A heavy day could see more than 45 foreign cars waiting to be seen by Klunder-Edmonds’ staff in one of what will be eight bays by the time the shop’s expansion is complete this August. The booming business is quite an accomplishment for the Palmer native, who is one of only two women nationwide to have earned the distinction of certified Master Shop Owner, and the only such owner — male or female — in Alaska.

“It’s a degree that comes from years of taking classes,” Klunder-Edmonds explained of the certificate she received in April. “A lot of it is online, but I also travel to California quite frequently for weeklong classes… You do apprenticeships, monitor stats to make sure you’re heading in an upward trend and submit policies and such... It’s homework; you have to turn in your homework and have certain criteria met to achieve master shop owner.”

Coming out of Palmer High School, Klunder-Edmonds figured she’d find herself on a much different course of study.

“I really wanted to be a lawyer growing up, but in college I got a part-time job shipping and receiving parts back in the day and never left,” she said. “Then I married a tech — an amazing tech — he’s really one of the best I’ve ever met. At the time we were living out in the valley, commuting to Anchorage and we didn’t want to commute anymore... One day we looked at each other and he said, ‘I can fix cars,’ and I said, ‘I can look up service prices.’”

Tobi and Kevin opened their first shop on Bogard Road in Wasilla. They quickly realized running a shop was more complicated than their initial assessment. Tobi decided to put her academic skills to good use and enrolled in the Master Shop Owner program at Management Success in Glendale, Calif., in tandem with their move to the current location in Palmer, where their business continues to thrive.

“It’s educating shop owners on how to run a shop and be profitable, ethical,” she said. “A lot of shop owners make the mistake of trying to manage their shop instead of just being an owner, making changes and trusting other people to do the other things you need them to do. What’s been most challenging is just trying to figure out my role and how to play it.”

Since she first began working in the auto repair industry as a teenager, Klunder-Edmonds has seen first-hand how stories of women being overcharged and taken advantage of by repair shops are no myth.

“I’ve been doing this since I was 18, but even nowadays, if I’m in a shop and people don’t know who I am, I get treated like an idiot,” Klunder-Edmonds said. “I get sold things that I know for a fact are not needed, trying to tell me fluids are bad, talk down to me or make up words.”

Klunder-Edmonds said the deception is never as absurd as one might imagine, and she’s not always sure whether it’s intentionally sexist.

“It’s not anything so obvious as a ‘kneuter valve’ or ‘blinker fluid,’ and I can’t honestly determine if they’re just not informed correctly. Sometimes, though, it’s blatantly because I’m a girl.”

Klunder-Edmonds said those experiences have informed the way she teaches her service writers to explain repairs clearly to clients of both sexes.

“We try not to make gender a thing. In fact, most guys won’t admit it if they don’t know something about a car — they’ll nod and go along with it, while females are more inclidned to say, ‘I have no idea,’” Klunder-Edmonds said. “So I really make sure they pay attention to what I call, ‘Talking in Crayon’, which means not talking down to somebody and making sure they don’t use any automotive terminology.”

Later next month, Klunder-Edmonds will attempt to share her advice with other women in the hopes that they might walk into repair shops more confident, and less likely to be taken advantage of.

“It is hard to see women come in here who’ve never been very uncomfortable because they don’t know about cars and they think they’ll get ripped off,” Klunder-Edmonds said. “Women will say to me, ‘I really wish I were more like you. How do you do it? But there’s nothing about me that makes me any different. I was just like you when I started in shipping and receiving; I didn’t know a tie rod from a ball joint. There’s no reason somebody can’t spend a little time and interest to get to know something about cars — or at least be a little bit dangerous.”