Kylie Cimaglia followed her love for cars to Kirkwood and national award
Kylie Cimaglia was just a youngster when she started taking an interest in her father Don’s projects.
“Beginning at an early age, it was Kylie who would tag along with me when I was doing things,” the Marion, Iowa man recalls. “Whether it was working on cars, hunting or even building a shed, she was the one who seemed interested in those kinds of things.”
Of Don and Connie Cimaglia’s three daughters, it was Kylie, the youngest, who had the strongest interest in Dad’s projects. Particularly when he worked on cars.
Those pursuits proved to be useful–and a little prophetic. Kylie Cimaglia (pron. “sa-MAHG-leah”) has leveraged those hands-on years at her father’s side into a rapidly advancing career in automotive body repair and detailing. The 20-year-old also recently proved her mettle in the car body craft by taking top-level honors in a national community college industrial skills competition.
Kylie is a recent graduate of the Automotive Collision Repair program at Kirkwood Community College. She blazed through the one-year course of study in fine form, earning her the Outstanding Student award for that degree in Kirkwood’s 2012-13 academic year. In parallel with her college studies, in early 2012 she also began work at Zimmerman Body Shop on the northeast side of Cedar Rapids.
She capped off her year’s studies by winning the Iowa state title in auto refinishing competition through SkillsUSA. The nationally sanctioned contests pit students from community colleges across the country in tests of skills and knowledge of many industrial and mechanical trades. State winners earn the right to attend the SkillsUSA national competition in Kansas City, MO. Cimaglia put her talents on the line in mid-June 2013 and beat most of her mostly-male competitors in the process, finishing second in the nation.
Kirkwood Auto Collision Repair instructor Gordy Jacobsen saw Cimaglia’s talent and skill blossom early in the college Auto Collision labs.
“Kylie is a very determined and goal-oriented individual. She is sort of quiet and humble, but she quickly earned the respect of her classmates because of her demonstrated abilities,” Jacobsen said. “To my knowledge, she is the only female we have had to go to the SkillsUSA competition in our Auto Collision program. We are truly proud of her and her accomplishments.”
The young auto body specialist is also earning rave reviews at Zimmerman Body Shop. Her Assistant Manager Kevin Oestreich concurs that Cimaglia is “mighty talented, but humble, too” on the job.
“Kylie’s work is definitely above average. She is energetic and thorough. She is always open to learn the next thing, move to more responsibility. She is also very coachable and learns quickly,” he said.
In fact, Oestreich also observed that her ease of taking on more and different jobs has already earned her a nickname around the Council Street Northeast operation.
“We took to calling her ‘Jackie,’” he said with a chuckle. “That’s as in ‘Jack of All Trades.’ Anything we put in front of her, she is willing to give it a shot and learn along the way.”
Kylie says she enjoys the work at the Zimmerman shop. From a beginning role as a detailer in early 2012, she has advanced to take charge of a whole series of auto finish and repair duties. She sees it as a chance to not only build a career and earn money, but also hone her skills at an often-demanding craft.
“I work with some real professionals, and I can see how this is something you take a while to learn. For me one of the trickier things is getting the color tinting just right. The guys here keep telling me it’s a real art that could take years to get down perfectly. So I don’t beat myself up, and keep learning and working on it,” Cimaglia said.
To complement Kylie Cimaglia’s realism and humility, father Don also remembers a bedrock confidence and skill he saw when the 16-year-old took on a project on her first car.
“She helped me replace the entire front suspension on a 1997 Eclipse,” he recalled. “She wasn’t satisfied to leave it at that. The next thing she wanted to do was detail and finish the wheel rims. She painted the inner curve of the wheels in a royal blue and left the outer rims in polished aluminum. I remember she was absolutely meticulous about that project! It probably took her two weeks to get it done.”
So how much help did the teenager ask for from Dad? Don Cimaglia pauses and laughs.
“I remember that came down to four words. ‘I got this, Dad.”