With her long, blond curls, her petite stature and her dazzling smile, it would be easy to mistake Kimberly Pinette, 19, for a TV model hired to promote new cars at Darling’s Ford in Bangor.

That is, if she weren’t standing behind the service counter.

“A lot of guys are a little shocked,” the teenage Volkswagen-Audi service writer said Wednesday. “They look at me like I have two heads and think: ‘What does she know?'”

Most people are surprised to find out that Pinette knows quite a bit about automobiles and already has several accomplishments under her belt. And even though she’s still a teenager, her earnings outpace the majority of her age group and even exceed that of her mother, who works as a biologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

While attending Old Town High School, where she graduated with honors in 2004, Pinette took automotive diagnostic classes at United Technology Center in Bangor, which led her to her job at Darling’s.

As a UTC student last year, she, along with partner Branden Brewer of Brewer High School, took first place in the state’s Ford-AAA Student Auto Skills Trouble-Shooting Contest and 16th at the national finals held June 29, 2004, in Dearborn, Mich.

Pinette was the only female competitor at the finals.

“Kim was the first girl to pass the written test” to qualify for the state competition, UTC instructor Frank Dumond, who has been teaching for 29 years, said recently. “She was the first girl in the state to compete in the automotive diagnostic competition.”

For Pinette and Brewer to earn first place for the state, they had to find a number of different “bugs” in a 2004 Crown Victoria, racing against nine other teams in the timed event. The bugs could be anything from a burned-out light to a bad ignition coil.

“They have to find all the bugs and have no workmanship demerits,” Dumond said. “It has to look factory when it’s done.”

During the national finals, the UTC duo worked on a 2004 Ford Escape, also looking for problems in the vehicle.

Pinette is an outstanding automotive student, but she is not the first or last female to enroll in the UTC automotive program, Dumond said. There are 25 high school students enrolled in the program this year and two are female, he said.

It’s hard to tell just by looking at her that the teenager enjoys working on cars and trucks and loves getting dirty.

At UTC, Pinette rebuilt an engine for an ’89 Mustang GT that she now drives. She also rebuilt and tweaked an ’86 Chevy Silverado with a high-performance engine that runs on high-octane airplane fuel so that she can compete in mud-running contests around the state.

“Under the mud, it’s blue,” she said of her mudding truck.

As a service writer, it is Pinette’s job to listen to customers who have problems with their vehicles and to create work orders for the mechanics. She said she likes her job, but she often misses the hands-on work found in the garage.

“Sometimes I’d rather be turning wrenches,” she said. “That’s more my style.”

Co-workers at Darling’s have given Pinette the nickname “Little One.”

“A lot of people there have kids my age, so it’s kind of weird,” she said. “There are a lot of little kid jokes.”

The toughest problem she has encountered on her job, Pinette said, are “close-minded guys,” but she said only a small portion of the people she deals with are such customers.

“The thing that bugs me most is guys that come in, and [when] I try explaining what’s wrong with their vehicle, they want to hear it from the technician,” she said. “They’ll believe it from the technician, who’s telling them the same thing I am.”

At Darling’s she has worked on a variety of vehicle issues, from simple oil changes to a Volkswagen with intermittent problems that were difficult to identify.

In all, Pinette takes a positive attitude: “There is always a solution to everything,” she said.

The Old Town resident originally got her job at Darling’s through a UTC intern program called the Automotive Youth Education System.

“It gives high school juniors a chance to work at local dealerships,” Dumond said. “She interned [at Darling’s] during her junior year.

“It seasoned her,” he said.

The intern program is a perfect way to attract and train qualified help, George Delle Chiaie, Darling’s service director, said.

“It’s so much better to invest time and energy in our youth,” he said.

With three females working the day shift at Darling’s, stereotypes about who can work on vehicles is changing, Delle Chiaie said.

“I’ve trained a lot of women in this job that’s been dedicated to men,” he said. “In today’s public, they seem to do a better job. … I think they’re just more patient.”

Female customers also feel more at ease working with women, both Delle Chiaie and Pinette said.

After the national competition, both Brewer and Pinette were offered $30,000 in individual school scholarships. Pinette, however, decided to stay put instead of taking additional schooling. She said there are several reasons behind her decision, one being her boyfriend, and another being the salary Darling’s offered.

“I thought, ‘My mom makes this kind of money,'” she said after describing her income as “good, very good.”

A portion of her salary is based on commissions and bonuses. Pinette was reluctant to name an actual amount, but she is earning enough to easily purchase a new hot tub and is working on building a house in Eddington.

“It’s more than what a lot of my teachers make,” she added.

Now that most cars are operated with computers, low-paying grease monkey jobs are disappearing, Dumond said. Automotive industry salaries are increasing, and educated personnel “can make a good living, a very good living, in fact,” he said.

Last year Dumond conducted an informal survey which indicated that top automotive technicians in the Bangor area can earn as much as $60,000 a year. Starting pay for entry-level service writers and technicians can range between $30,000 and $50,000, he said.

“It depends on the size of the dealership and the incentive programs,” Dumond said. “Big dealerships will pay more and smaller dealerships pay less.”

Pinette is not the only UTC alum who is employed locally.

“One of my classmates is working across the street at Darling’s Honda, and another one is at Quirk,” she said.