A DuPont engineer who dreaded visiting the mechanic quit her six-figure job to open her own garage. Here are 6 principles she says entrepreneurs can use to disrupt 'boys' club' industries.

Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

Patrice Banks, owner of Girls Auto Clinic in Philadelphia.

• Patrice Banks was was making a six-figure salary as an engineer at DuPont when she left the corporate world to launch Girls Auto Clinic.
• Now in its third year, business is straining the capacity of the original garage in Philadelphia, and Banks has her sights on an expansion.
• Banks spoke with Business Insider about what she's learned, and what other entrepreneurs should think about when challenging an industry's business model.
• Visit BI Prime for more stories.

More than half of all drivers in the US are women, but fewer than 10% of auto mechanics are female.

Those figures don't sit well with Patrice Banks, and they're a big part of why she left her six-figure salary as an engineer at DuPont to launch Girls Auto Clinic.

Back when she was growing up, a car represented much more than a way to get around: it was her escape from a chaotic household in a working-class town.

She became the first in her family to go to college, but even as she excelled academically and professionally, she was at a loss when the check engine light came on. By age 31 she was running a materials science lab at DuPont, and yet she still didn't know how to pop open the hood of her car.

Like a majority of other women, she dreaded the experience of unfair treatment at the auto-service shop because of her gender, so she enrolled in night classes to become a certified mechanic.

From there she began teaching workshops for other women to demystify car maintenance and empower them with the knowledge to confidently discuss repairs with service technicians. (Researchers at Northwestern in 2013 found that repair shops do in fact give higher price quotes to women than men.)

Out of those workshops Banks launched the Girls Auto Clinic business and published a glove box guide for her growing audience that she calls "she-canics."

Now in its third year, the business is straining the capacity of the original three-bay garage in Philadelphia, meaning Banks has her sights on an expansion.

She recently spoke with Business Insider about what she's learned from her first two years of operation, and what other entrepreneurs should think about when challenging an industry's business model.