June 2024 Vehicle Care RockStar: Audra Fordin

Audra Fordin, owner of Great Bear Auto Repair and Auto Body Shop in Flushing, Queens, New York, discovered her passion for auto repair early in life. Yet despite coming from generations of repair shop owners, she had to fight to fit in. Now, over forty years later, her place is cemented in the industry, but the fight hasn’t gone out of her yet.
As a celebrity mechanic and founder of the Women Auto Know and Drivers Auto Know brands, she’s now using her voice to educate and empower drivers with automotive knowledge. Her passion has turned her job into a ministry, where she can spread the message of preventative maintenance to drivers through a network of repair shops, bolstering consumer know-how and their perspective of the repair industry - as well as saving their lives.