When Marley Devergilio graduated from Central Michigan University, her first post-collegiate job was a sweet one – working as a sales representative for The Hershey Company in Novi, Mich.
But as she pondered where she wanted her career to go, Devergilio realized she was working in the automotive capital of the world and decided that path as perhaps the one she should follow.
So, she followed it — through positions at ZF Group, NEAPCO and AVL, auto suppliers all. She now serves as sales strategy manager for Forvia Hella, a leading provider of automotive technologies, specializing in lighting and electronics.
“Living in Michigan, automotive just made more sense,” Devergilio said. “My first foray into automotive was at ZF, and I loved it. And after getting involved in it, that’s where I’m like, ‘OK, this is where I want to be. This is where I see my future progressing.”
Her sojourn into the automotive industry also allowed Devergilio to cross paths with the Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to empowering women in the automotive and related mobility industries.
AWAF hosts a series of events and programs designed to advance and empower every woman in the automotive and related industries. The idea is to help shape the mobility industry by advocating for the advancement of every woman throughout her career.
“People are there to support you and help you to thrive and help to let you network,” Devergilio said. “But it’s also about building the pipeline for the future of the automotive industry for (women) that are in the next generation.
“And to me, just having a home base somewhere that I could call home, being at all the AWAF events and just being able to learn different things. I just loved it.”
And the AWAF loved her right back, so much so that AWAF officials recruited Devergilio to be one of the keynote speakers when the foundation celebrates its 30th anniversary next month.
The foundation celebrates 30 years with a gala event set for May 7, from 5:30 to 9 p.m., at the Wabeek Country Club, located at 4000 Clubgate Drive in Bloomfield Township.
Kim Ziomek co-founded the AWAF as a non-profit organization committed to empowering women in the automotive and related mobility industries.
That’s the basic goal of the organization, according to Ziomek, who founded the group with Molly Padovini and Fran Bachmann three decades ago. The group has a membership, a board of directors and an executive committee Ziomek says is “passionate and compassionate.”
The group does surveys. It looks to provide access to speakers that would not normally be accessible, and the opportunity to “meet and greet other women” in the industry.
Carla Bailo’s background is automotive, having been the senior vice president for Nissan Research and Development for North and South America and the CEO for the Center for Automotive Research. She’s a big supporter of AWAF, having spent years on the organization’s executive committee. She thinks the reason for AWAF’s success is rooted in its mission.
“Everybody has heart for the mission to get more women in the automotive field in some way,” Bailo said. “It doesn’t have to be engineering like I am, but it can be a number of different ways to get into the business. And everybody feels that need.”
Carolyn Sauer, who handles business development and marketing for Schaltbau North America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Schaltbau GmbH that was established in 2001 to support the North American customer base for products including contactors, snap-action switches, connectors, control devices and high-voltage equipment for railway applications, said she “really likes” the organization’s mission of helping develop and promote women across their career path.
“To be able to help some of these amazing and inspiring students that we’re helping to be able to fulfill their passion and their dreams is really exciting,” Sauer told Corp! earlier this year. “I was hoping to get some inspiration, which I did. We’ve had some really great conversations. People are open and candid and (shared) really relatable stories and helpful advice on how we can keep navigating change in this … industry. Hearing those insights is really helpful.”
The 30th anniversary gala will celebrate everything good about AWAF. Joe Fadool, president and CEO of Borg Warner, will open the event with a presentation. A number of speakers (including Devergilio) will tell their AWAF stories. AWAF will also award scholarships.
“I’ve just found (AWAF) to be a place that I could call home besides just the traditional company approach,” Devergilio said. “A lot of companies do offer good opportunities for being able to get involved. But the thing that I liked about AWAF is that you get exposure to everyone in the industry, you get different ideas, you get different ways of doing things and connecting with others.”
Closing out the night will be Sharon Morgan,an AWAF board member who serves as vice president of AutoLiv Research and Engineering globally.
LaFontaine Automotive Group is set to display a pair of 30-year-old cars. Lucid Motors will also display its gravity vehicle.
“It’s just going to be a fun gala,” Ziomek said.
And the gala will celebrate AWAF’s legacy, which Ziomek said points to a financially successful organization right from the get-go, where the majority of the funds go towards scholarships.
With scholarships handed out this year, AWAF hopes to pass the $1 million mark.
“Nobody else can say that in an all-volunteer organization,” Ziomek said. “We have a camaraderie that is internal to the board and the executive advisors, but the camaraderie that exists between the membership is amazing. We support one another.
“That is due to the board,” she added. “The board is passionate, compassionate, and shows the empathy when needed to support one another. And I don’t see that when I go to some other organizations. We are the ones that started the ‘fireside chats’ at my house. It must be good because everybody copies it now.”
What’s the secret to AWAF’s growth? Ziomek said it boils down to communication and drive.
“There is drive for this organization to succeed,” she said. “There is communication at all aspects for it to succeed. And the energy level has never stopped. It has never waned.”
According to Bailo, that kind of energy, combined with a lack of ego among the people who run AWAF, are largely responsible for the group’s success.
“Everybody is just passionate and excited and energized, and you always get volunteers to do whatever’s needed and always come up with new ideas,” Bailo said. “I’ve been involved in several other women executive groups, and none of them are like this one. Everybody leaves their title at the door wherever we go, and we’re just women in the business. That’s it. And I don’t find that in any other organization.”
Ziomek called the group’s first 30 years “remarkable.” From the “get-go,” she said, they put together an “amazing team of women” who are all volunteers. There has been cohesion because organizers insist on it.
“Every two years we have a new election with a new president that runs it,” Ziomek said. “There’s no cat-fighting at all. It’s not tolerated. We have a very cohesive, very functional and financially successful organization.”
Despite all the success, Ziomek would like to see the advancement of women in the automotive industry move a little quicker. She said “we’re not seeing the numbers that we’d like to see in terms of women being promoted.
Sure, she pointed out, the workplace is more friendly, but that doesn’t mean women are being promoted any better.
“We have a CEO who’s a woman (GM’s Mary Barra), and that was our eureka moment,” she said. “I remember that day so well. We just were all astounded because we never thought we’d see the day, and she’s proven to be excellent. I’m still not seeing women being promoted as much as I’d like to see them be promoted.”
One of AWAF’s real strengths, according to Bailo, is the fact it supports women at all stages in their career. She said she participated in a number of events with younger people just starting out … “I learned as much from them as, hopefully, they’re learning from me.”
While the first 30 years have been successful, Bailo sees change a’comin.’
“We’re going to see more changes in the next 30 years than we’ve seen in the last five,” Bailo said. “Technology is moving so fast, and the competition is moving so fast. I mean, China is going incredibly fast and they’re doing things very efficiently. They’re not afraid to try new things. Of course, they have the government and government money to protect them if it fails, but we are going to have to have a radical change in how we do business just to be able to compete.
“This is what the customer’s expecting,” she added. “And so, your customer of tomorrow that’s grown up with this kind of rapidity isn’t going to settle for business as usual.”
And with all that change coming, Ziomek said it’s important for AWAF to keep plugging away at what it does best.
“We need to keep doing everything that we’re doing right now,” she said. “We need to keep empowering women. We need to keep the leadership aware of what’s going on. We need to keep building networks of people together. Those would be the biggest things we need to stay focused on.
While she’s very enthused about AWAF’s future, Ziomek also takes time to be thankful for its past.
“I’m very grateful for the past 30-plus years — more than that — that I have watched teams of boards of directors and executive advisors come in and understand the mission, the vision, the goals and the objectives and align with that for success,” Ziomek said.
