The gender barrier has been broken at Cutter Dodge Chrysler Jeep in Pearl City, with all five top sales consultants in May being women.

"In 30 years I’ve never seen women" make the top five, said Gary Scheuring, director of training and development for Cutter Automotive Galleries. "I’d really like to see more women in our business."

The Pearl City Cutter dealership has more female sales consultants than others in the Cutter group, according to General Manager Ron Wright. The five women comprise slightly more than a third of the 14-member sales team.

The top producers for May, in order of sales, were Eva Hernandez, Celina Eklund, Katie Blevins, Esther Han and Mimi Hernandez (no relation to Eva).

"We actually went out and got them pink champagne," Wright said. "We’re having fun with it."

Eva Hernandez started with Cutter two years and four months ago, following her experience as a customer.

"The lady that sold us the car said, ‘You should sell cars,’" Hernandez said. She took an application, but it wasn’t until she saw a newspaper ad seeking sales consultants that she followed through on applying.

"I called the phone number and I went straight to the interview with (human resources), and got sent to training director Scheuring, who said, ‘You’re hired.’"

It doesn’t hurt that Hernandez is trilingual, speaking English, Spanish and Italian. "My parents are Puerto Rican and Italian," she explained.

She spent three weeks in training, which is paid time with the company. She has been a top producer since right after she started working on the sales floor.

"I get a lot of referral business," Hernandez said. She sold a car to a man who later brought his wife to her for a new car. "Their son just got a driver’s license," and they came back to see her again. "I love … the sense of accomplishment, and feeling like a part of people’s family."

"Being honest, it’s hard work," and takes dedication, she said. "You’re competing with yourself; you want to be better every month."

She says her colleagues all are hard workers. Each has "personal goals and we want to compete."

"We tease each other," she chuckled.

The car business has been male-dominated since its inception, so when women started filtering onto sales floors, "honestly, there was some pushback," Wright said.

However, looking at the population, he noted, "Half the drivers are women, (so) half the employees should be women."