For the four years she studied auto mechanics at Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica, Donna Walsh was the only girl in the class.

“It was a challenge, but the teachers were really great and my classmates were supportive,” she said.

After graduating, she got a job as a mechanic for Sears. Once again, the only girl. She said in the early days, some customers would say, “‘I don’t want her working on my car.’ Well, ‘it’s either her or you don’t get your car fixed.’ I remember a woman came out to my work area and I said, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t be here for insurance reasons.’ She said, ‘I want to see what’s under the hood.’”

So Walsh popped the hood and said, “‘When you’re done looking, let me know.’ I was a wiseguy. Of course I got in a little bit of trouble.”

Just as she did in school, she won over the skeptics with her skill and work ethic, doing “the best work possible.” She continued, “When I first went to school, some thought, ‘Oh, she wants to be around boys.’ No, I want to be a good mechanic.”

She methodically worked her way up at Sears.

“You know you’ve made it when you have your own [automobile] bay.”

She worked about 10 years as an auto mechanic and then became office manager of the Department of Public Works in Medford. How did that compare with her days as a mechanic?

“It was difficult, but I was the one who fixed the coffee machine.” Not long ago she took an early retirement.

Which “left time for my other passion — playing drums.”

“I always had music in my life,” she said. Early on she began taking piano and guitar lessons, but “life got in the way, so music went on a back burner.” Her older brother plays drums in a U.S. Navy band. He kept a drum kit set up in his home. When she visited, “That’s all I’d want to do.”

About eight years ago, she began taking drum lessons from Peter Moutis, “an awesome instructor in Exeter.” She attended a drum camp in California where she played drums “from 11 in the morning, to 11 at night.”

She studied music theory at University of New Hampshire and attended a master class from Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke. “He was really cool,” she said. “I love playing classic rock ... AC/DC, Judas Priest. I like the heavy stuff.”

She has a soundproof room in her basement where she practices. She hopes to find a band to play in locally. “Even a jam session would be cool,” she said.

What is it about drumming that keeps her coming back for more? “Just the challenge. Practicing a piece over and over until I get it.” And what does she hope for the audience? “It’s nice to see people dancing.”

Compared with the number of male drummers, she’s on track to once again be (nearly) the only girl in the class. She takes it in stride and remembers with a laugh that recently, a man working on her yard commented, “‘I heard your son playing drums.’ I said, ‘That’s not my son playing.’”

For more information, please contact Donna Walsh at drummms@hotmail.com.

Michael Lohmeier lives in Portsmouth writes a bi-weekly feature on the second lives many people lead outside of their main professions. Know someone who would make for an interesting profile? Drop a line to edge@seacoastonline.com and share a bit about their story and their contact information. See more Other Lives profiles online.