Ford Ranger and Ford Everest: Australia’s blokiest cars designed by women

THESE blokey cars were designed to take anything rough and tumble — and were developed by women.

These blokey cars were designed by women

THEY may be two of the blokiest cars on the market, but both the Ford Ranger and Ford Everest had a big helping band in their development and engineering by women.

Jane Gartner and Cleo Paoli both work in Ford’s Asia Pacific Engineering Center in Melbourne where they played key roles in getting Ford’s toughest cars on the market.

Ms Gartner helped manage all the engineering teams to deliver many interconnected pieces that make up Ford’s tradie favourite. While Ms Paoli was the engineer behind the climate system in the company’s latest SUV, the Everest.

Ms Gartner came straight from the University of Western Australia with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science to Ford’s graduate program and has been with the company ever since.

“Growing up, I liked physics and was good at maths; and engineering is what you do with these things so let’s go and try it out and see how that works,” she said.

She says that one of her biggest motivators is the feeling that people are enjoying something she helped create, and seeing actually seeing it on the road after the long road map and mountain of effort it took to design the car.

“When I speak to girls; no one really knows all the highly detailed things about suspension or how many kilowatts an engine produces but everyone says ‘I’ve seen those Rangers on the road they look really good’ or ‘My boyfriend just bought a Ranger because he’s a tradie’. It is easy to relate to it and it’s rewarding to make that kind of connection.” Mr Gartner said.

Jane Gartner helped manage all the engineering teams.

“Day in and day out, you need to be laser focused.”

In Australia, only 10 per cent of engineers are females.

Cleo Paoli, who helped design the climate control systems in Ford’s blokey cars came to the company after studying an Auronautical engineering degree at RMIT in Melbourne. She’s a big yoga fan and uses that to help her at work.

“Day in and day out, you need to be laser focused on that [climate control] system and all the parts that make it up — similar to how yoga requires you to focus your thoughts and energy.”

“This job can be very adrenaline-filled sometimes and yoga really just grounds you, you can reflect on the day well and it’s a connection between the physical, the mental and the spiritual. It also allows you to break away from everything and spend some time on yourself.”

In Australia, only 10 per cent of engineers are females. But neither of the girls let that stat put them down when looking to get into the industry.

Both of them say to young women interested in getting involved in engineering is to not let the stats and stereotypes scare you off.

“I’ve stood there with mechanical parts all over the bench, mechanics looking at you and all you can think is ‘Are they thinking that I don’t know what I am doing?’ I have never found that the case here at Ford especially if you are eager to learn and listen to them they do come around.” Ms Gartner said.

While Ms Paoli added that “It’s all about your path at the end of the day. Work challenges are there, take advantage of them rather than seeing them as an obstacle.

“Think about your own life and see where you want to be in 5 years and 10 years and just follow that.”