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Baby, You Can Fix My Car
Boomer Kennedy offers auto repair with attitude
by Kate Bernhardt
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 When you take your car to Boomer Kennedy's Chicago Auto Repair in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it'll come back fixed -- Boomer's way. That means detailed explanations on what was wrong with your car in the first place and what she had to do to fix it, opinions on everything from the state of your car's interior to commentary on the reading material you left in the back seat, and hints at Boomer's enthusiasms: Amelia Earhart, the opera Aida, and dogs. (Especially dogs, since Boomer's own hounds are living in New Mexico while she runs the Cambridge shop.)
At Chicago Auto, if you need a loaner car, you get one with a name. If you can live without a car but need other wheels, feel free to borrow one of Boomer's 20 loaner bikes. If you're a woman who wants to find out more about what's under your car's hood, take one of her car-care seminars. And come hungry, because the seminars are as famous for their catering as for their automotive content.
Chicago Auto is one of very few female-owned garages in the country, and Boomer's been running it since she founded her company on April Fool's Day in 1984. But the business is no joke: Chicago Auto's won the Greater Boston Business Council's 1998 Award for Excellence as a Small Business and the 1997 MIT/Cambridge Recognition Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship. Boomer herself finished at the top of her class at her auto school, the TAD Technical Institute, where she also won 5 of the 6 awards the school offers -- in only 10 months.
Boomer's body's in Cambridge while she figures out a way to run Chicago Auto long distance, but her heart's in New Mexico, where she's planning to finish her education -- studying WWII history -- and take advantage of the Albuquerque climate to pursue her other passions: kayaking, hiking, skiing, biking, rollerblading, and, of course, long walks with those beloved dogs.
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In this video clip, meet auto body repair maven, Boomer Kennedy.
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Boomer Kennedy
;)
