Terri Higa passed away suddenly May 5, 2020. Born on Christmas Day 1955 in Hawaii, Terri was an accidental trailblazer — the first woman loader at UPS and one of the first women to open her own car repair shop in San Francisco.After graduating from LA Trade Tech in automotive technology, Terri apprenticed at shops from Santa Barbara to San Mateo, becoming expert in high-end foreign car/motorcycle repair, fixing Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes Benzes to Deux Chevaux.
She worked at gay-owned Cowden Automotive in San Francisco for 11 years, after which she opened Higa Automotive in the South of Market neighborhood, where she became a beloved and indispensable mechanic to the LGBTQ and API nonprofit community for over a decade.