By age 16, Ashley Jo Bloom had decided that one day, she would open her own automotive shop. At the time, she was struggling to keep her old Volkswagen Dasher on the road by reading about basic repairs in how-to manuals.
After a short stint in the Navy—much of it spent powering through the pain of a fractured hip—and about 10 years as a Field Service Engineer, Ashley Jo transitioned to be an Automotive Technician and realized her dream.
Since 2019, Ashley Jo and her husband, Jeremy, an ASE Certified Master Technician and European Specialist with 20-plus years of experience, have co-owned PNW (Pacific Northwest) Automotive, a European Specialty Shop on the north Oregon Coast.
Both also are Diagnosticians, although Ashley Jo, an ASE Certified Technician, recently has taken on more management and service advisor tasks. While she’d rather get her hands dirty, she also enjoys helping customers feel comfortable with honesty and transparency.
“I love the complexity of working on European vehicles while being able to explain things in a way that customers understand,” she says. “That makes me feel successful: when a customer tells me, ‘No one’s ever explained it that way before’ or ‘I appreciate that you’re talking to me and not my husband’ or ‘Thank you for talking to me, not down to me.’”
“We always want a customer to understand why a repair is needed the best they can and see the value in the work,” Jeremy Bloom explains. “That includes sharing pictures and, at times, in-depth diagnostic notes.”
A Shining Star
Competitive by nature, Ashley Jo, 43, has never shied away from male-dominated settings. Generally speaking, she ignores people who treat her differently and focuses on her own education, preparation, and hard work as a combination technician-advisor.
“In our shop, she is definitely the star,” says Jeremy, 46. “Much of the time, I am just along for the ride.” (Ashley Jo, in turn, credits her husband for his drive to master new technologies, solve tricky electrical or mechanical problems, and mentor young techs.)
Often the only woman in high-level technical classes, Ashley Jo would like to see the automotive industry grow its workforce by embracing girls who like to work with their hands. That should begin at middle and high school career fairs, she says, and continue to college mechanics classes where women might enroll to master simple skills.
“They’re not always shown that this can be a real career path for them,” she notes. “How many of these talented young ladies could we redirect into entry-level technician roles if there were more support and encouragement?”
Even women who don’t want to turn wrenches could be better service advisors with more technical training, she adds: “You can communicate more clearly if you have the understanding to answer difficult questions while staying kind and patient.”
PNW Automotive has a six-member team and a nearly 3,000-square-foot building with a 1,600-square-foot bay in Astoria, Ore., overlooking the scenic Saddle Mountain and Youngs Bay. The shop has an annual revenue of $860,000 and an average repair order of $1,025. Specialty areas include BMW, Mini, Audi, VW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar, and Subaru.
A Natural for the Industry
A native of Boring, Ore., Ashley Jo grew up with a father who was a mechanical engineer and liked tinkering with cars at home. By elementary school, she remembers peppering him with questions as he replaced the engine in their Ford Pinto station wagon and rebuilt carburetors on a 1973 Mercury Outboard that is still going strong to this day.
“He didn’t always know what he was doing,” she recalls. “But he definitely sparked my interest.”
Once she had her driver’s license, Ashley Jo scraped together money for a bright green 1977 car that she kept alive for two years. She did oil changes, replaced belts and, with trial and error, fixed a faulty valve cover that was damaging the alternator.
Throughout high school, she worked two retail jobs while juggling homework and dance team competitions. She eventually was able to buy her dream car at the time, her best friend’s 1990 Acura Integra.
Not long after graduation, Ashley Jo joined the Navy. In a boot camp accident, other recruits smashed her into a cement wall during a drill; she limped away and persisted through the rest of camp plus 10 months of technical training before an MRI revealed a hairline fracture in one of her hips. She was given an honorable medical discharge.
“I have a high pain tolerance,” she explained. “By staying in for that time, I gained really valuable skills that all lend themselves to what I do now.”
Before she turned 20, Ashley Jo had replaced the engine on her first husband’s used Toyota Supra, which caught fire soon after they bought it. She finished the job over two weeks in a poorly-lit barn in Virginia, where the couple was living, using tools from Advance Auto.
“I wasn’t fast, but I had no one nearby to help,” she says. “I had to just figure it out.”
Partners in Life and Business
Ashley Jo continued her career path by training as a Field Service Engineer with two companies, Hitachi High Technologies America and Lam Research. She met Jeremy when he came over to her dad’s house to help her brother rewire the electronics in his car.
Jeremy, too, had been interested in mechanics since childhood. He frequently took apart his toys and electronics—and, on occasion, his siblings’ belongings—to try to figure out how they worked. “Sometimes these items were reassembled, but unfortunately they often were not,” he says. “They were casualties of my curiosity.”
After entering the automotive field as a teenager, Jeremy was immediately drawn to diagnostics. Yet he felt shops often rushed through diagnostic work, underpaid technicians, and made unnecessary repairs that eroded customers’ trust in the industry.
As Jeremy and Ashley Jo planned their own business, they vowed to do better by customers and boost employee salaries, both for retention purposes and to encourage better pay at other local shops. They also have transitioned to a four-day work week.
Still, one of the Blooms’ biggest challenges is keeping a consistent year-round staff, largely due to lucrative seasonal work, such as commercial fishing in Alaska and landscaping. “We could bring in people from other states, but we have great talent here,” Ashley Jo says.
To further integrate into the community, the PNW team takes on regular volunteer projects, such as creating free holiday light displays, sponsoring youth dance teams and building floats for parades.
Outside of work, Ashley Jo’s hobbies range from archery and wakeboarding to baking and gardening. She and Jeremy have a combined five children, ages 9 to 22; Ashley Jo’s son, Fries, 20, has worked for PNW since he was 17, and the couple’s two daughters, 9 and 10, are both interested in their parents’ work.
Running a family business is tough but rewarding, Jeremy says: “As one might expect, spending all day every day with your spouse has its moments. But it works for us. Ashley Jo is my partner and my best friend, and honestly, I feel kind of lost when she is not here.”
The Blooms are weighing the possibility of expanding their current building and potentially adding new locations sometime in the future. In the meantime, Ashley Jo welcomes contact from other women who are considering or building a career in the industry.
“It’s not just that women belong here,” she said. “It’s that we can really thrive.”