BY HAILEY MINTON

Kassy Stegen’s sociability stirred her desire to go back to work. After she and her husband Nick had child number two, she wanted to be a stay at home mom, but she was too social to stay that way. Her mother-in-law ran the finances at Stegen’s Autobody when she passed away, and the family business needed someone to fill her role there. Kassy is naturally a people person, but the world of finance and cars was foreign ground. She previously worked as a dental assistant, so it was quite a dramatic career shift. She was told no one else knew how to do the job, but it needed to be done, and they asked her to figure it out. She couldn’t be trained by her mother-in-law, so she took what was there and made it her own.

Kassy grew up in Warren on a farm, which is West of Plain City. Her parents owned a construction business, but life and work out there was very different compared to what it is in Ogden. Taking care of a horse is very different than taking care of a car. It takes a certain amount of confidence to jump into an ocean of unknowns without being paralyzed and overwhelmed. YouTube and Google helped her learn quickbooks, and “How do you __” appeared frequently in her search bar. Learning comes easiest for her hands-on. She has been a part of the business for five years, and it took the first two to build her knowledge and capabilities in all her responsibilities to where she finally felt comfortable in her work.

Aside from the finance side of things, she had to learn the language of cars and learn how to explain it simply to customers. “I had to learn how to handle compassion in a different way than what I was used to.” When someone is in an accident, it’s very scary. She learned how to talk people down from a panic state and help them understand that they will be taken care of.

Stegen’s Autobody is a family owned business where they treat their customers like family. “We don’t look at the money,” said Kassy, “We look at the quality, safety, and satisfaction of our customers.” They are about making each customer their family and treating them in a way that keeps them coming back.