Kewaunee attends SkillsUSA

KEWAUNEE – A Wisconsin SkillsUSA regional competition was held on Friday, Feb. 6, at the Northcentral Technical College in the Center for Health Sciences/NTC Health Science Center, Wausau. Kewaunee High School’s SkillsUSA club was represented by sixteen competitors across a variety of disciplines.

Student Gage Vlies said he was attracted to SkillsUSA because he wanted to learn more about working with his hands, and the organization offers several team competitions where he has been able to collaborate with his friends on projects that interest them. Vlies competes in team engineering and team welding fabrication, which require very different approaches. A team engineering competition usually involves the team being provided with a challenge they need to solve on the spot using simple tools and provided materials. For team welding fabrication, on the other hand, the team’s project — in Vlies’ case, a welded chair — must be completed before the event, and presented to judges with pictures of the process.

The team then faces an interview where they explain and justify their work.

Vlies said he prefers to compete with a team because of the opportunity for collaboration.
“I feel like it’s a little less daunting to do it with some of your friends, instead of taking it on by yourself,” he said.

Kewaunee High School boasts several welding booths where students can practice their craft and work on their projects, along with metal supplies to work with.

Vlies said while he came into his first SkillsUSA competition with nerves, it ended up being one of his favorite memories with the organization.

“Going down [to compete] freshman year, our very first competition, and just kind of trying to figure it out on our own, not really knowing what to expect, but ultimately putting it together and making a pretty nice little car for team engineering was pretty memorable,” he said.

Student Abigail Shimanek shares Vlies’ passion for welding, but takes a different approach to the medium with sculpture.

“I like to take something like an object that is in my life or that I’ve seen, and then create it with metal,” she said.

For a discipline like welding sculpture, the judging process looks different. The student must still present photos of their progress and submit to an interview, but the most important aspects are the creativity and execution of the sculpture itself.

At last year’s regional competition, Shimanek surprised herself with a first-place finish in welding sculpture with a lifelike camera, which she said is still the best experience she’s had with the organization to date.

While SkillsUSA includes a huge variety of disciplines, participants can expect to learn similar skills.

“It’s definitely grown my ability to speak on the spot in an interview setting. It’s also helped me grow my knowledge and skills, obviously, but then having a face-to-face conversation with someone, and being fluent, looking them in the eye, and just having good respect for them and manners,” Shimanek said.

Kewaunee High School’s SkillsUSA team is managed by Tech Ed and Agriculture Teacher and Storm Football Coach Randy Charles and Metals Teacher Casey Mumper.

“What Skills USA allows us to do is to take a lot of the things that we we do and talk about in our our tech classes, and allow the students to go a lot deeper into some of those kind of career fields and and really kind of hone in on their skills and and showcase them kind of on a bigger platform,” Charles said.

Charles said in his time as coadvisor, the disciplines he sees the biggest interest in each year are team engineering, welding and woodworking. The KHS team number typically sits around 25 students, and Charles said the students who join are often go-getters who can complete independent projects. The role of advisor is a busy one, especially for staff like Charles who already juggle so many responsibilities, but the attitude of participating students can make all the difference.

“The week leading up to competitions kind of gets to be crunch time a little bit, students trying to finish up projects and making sure that everything’s of quality, and getting all their paperwork and resumes in line. And you know, that definitely poses a little bit of a challenge on top of your regular classes and workload that you’re doing on a daily basis,” Charles said. “It gets to be a lot to manage and juggle, but it’s one of those things that, when you have some really good students that take on those challenges and are able to work independently, it makes some of those challenges a little bit a little bit easier.”

Charles said that work is worth it, though, especially when he gets to see students discover a new skill that lends them a confidence and purpose they didn’t have before.

“We’ve had some students place higher in events than they thought they would, including regional and even at the state level over the last couple of years. When the students realize how well that they placed and did in the competition, you can definitely see that they’re proud of their work, and I think it gives them a little bit more confidence to show them that they are sometimes more capable than they think they are. Because I think that’s almost a trend in some cases, where students are harder on their own work and their own abilities than they actually are. Over the last couple years, we’ve had a few students that, after competing, have kind of gained confidence in their ability to do the skill that they’re doing, and even pursue some of these things as careers.”

Charles said having a SkillsUSA team at Kewaunee has benefitted more than the team members, however.

“One of the things that I really like about what we’re able to do here is our tech ed classes, and SkillsUSA is a big part of us being able to do that and help showcase some of these careers, especially those in the trades that are are in huge demand in in our our communities, including our local community that we need workers for. There are really good quality paying jobs that kids can make an incredible career and living off of. And I think that’s what SkillsUSA helps us do, is give us some avenues to showcase those skills, but then also help students develop some of those skills that allow them to pursue some careers that are really in demand, including some of these careers that AI can’t replace. I think that’s huge,” he said.

SkillsUSA provides students with the opportunity to learn hundreds of skills, from early childhood education to masonry, with each sorted into the categories of leadership, occupationally related and skilled and technical. They are free to choose a different category of competition each year, refining a skill they’re already discovered or exploring a new one.
“You don’t have to be a shop kid who knows everything and loves to work with their hands. There’s a lot of different competitions. There’s a hairdressing competition. So really, anyone can join SkillsUSA, and you can do whatever you want,” Vlies said.