WINTERPORT – Hours before Megan Whittlesey’s high school prom, her mother carefully painted her daughter’s fingernails a pale blue to match her flowing gown.

Margaret Whittlesey hoped the blue shine would conceal, for just one glamorous night, the grease layered under the nails and around the cuticles of her young daughter’s fingers.

“Sometimes it’s irritating to see her with grease on her hands,” her mom said. “But she keeps hand cream on them and I make her wash the dishes a lot to get all the black off.”

The grime does not bother Megan, 17, who loves to spend her days in “the shop.”

A senior at Hampden Academy, Whittlesey has spent the last two years studying automotive diagnostics with “the guys” at the United Technologies Center on Hogan Road in Bangor. Despite being the only girl in her automotive classes, she has continually outperformed her male peers.

“The thing that sets Megan apart is her effort,” said Frank Dumond, her UTC automotive instructor. “She gives 110 percent everyday. Her attitude is a huge plus for her. She is a real focused kid.”

In March, Whittlesey won a gold medal in the statewide SkillsUSA competition in diagnostics. In June, she will travel to Kansas City, Mo., to represent Maine in the national event.

Today, she will travel to Auburn and compete in the state Ford AAA Auto Skills Competition, an event she qualified for by earning a high score on the preliminary written examination.

Whittlesey’s partner for the hands-on competition will be UTC’s other high scorer, Phillip Taheny, 18, of Glenburn. The two will have 90 minutes to fix a 2007 Mercury Grand Marquis GS that instructors have “bugged” with defects.

“I’ve been in the same class with her for two years,” Taheny said. Even though test scores required their partnership, Taheny said he probably would have chosen her anyway to be competitive.

While industry leaders say it is now far more common for women to enter automotive professions, it is still a male-dominated occupation. In fact, of the 7,500 students in the nation who completed the Ford AAA qualifying exams, only around 15 were female, said Allan Stanley, national manager for Ford AAA Student Auto Skills Competition.

“We hear [women] progress very fast because of their attention to detail and ability to stick their nose to the grindstone,” he said in a phone interview from his office in Hethrow, Fla. “Women working as technicians is certainly becoming more common, but it is more accepted on the West Coast and northeast than in other parts of the nation.”

Kim Pinette, 21, won the Ford AAA state competition as a UTC student in 2004 and now works at Darling’s Ford in Bangor as the Audi and Volkswagen service manager.

“I still get customers that walk up to the counter and think I’m the receptionist,” Pinette said. “They get a surprised look on their face when they realize I know what I’m talking about.”

In fact, both Pinette and Whittlesey said their coworkers adapted to sharing the shop with women more quickly than the customers.

Whittlesey works as a technician at Rawcliffe’s Service Center in Hampden, where she is a “sister in the brotherhood.”

“She has earned the respect and adoration of everyone here,” said Tim Oversmith, general manager at Rawcliffe’s. “I never looked at her as our first female technician; I look at her as our next technician. She has earned her stripes and has had her hands in every job there is, changing tires, lighting repairs, oil changes.”

The greatest perk of working with the group at Rawcliffe’s is the family atmosphere, Whittlesey said.

“They all protect me and stand up for me,” she said.

“I was showing them my prom pictures and they all said ‘You better tell Nick [her boyfriend] to watch his hands,'” she said with a chuckle.

Although Whittlesey plans to study automotive technology at Central Maine Community College in Auburn in the fall, she will continue to work at Rawcliffe’s.

Since Whittlesey enrolled in college courses while in high school, she will enter college with her first semester completed.

“This stuff really grows on her,” said Bill Whittlesey, Megan’s father. “She adapts to stuff really quickly and understands it all so well. She is just so dedicated and smart.”

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY JOHN CLARKE RUSS

Megan Whittlesey (left), 17, of Winterport and her classmate Phil Taheny, 18, of Glenburn discuss diagnostic issues with instructor Frank Dumond at the United Technologies Center in Bangor.