Thirteen College of Western Idaho (CWI) students recently traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to compete in the 2017 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference held June 20-22. CWI’s team is celebrating another successful performance, with students bringing home two gold, a silver, and two bronze medals in their respective competitions.
More than 6,000 high school and post-secondary students from around the nation competed in 100 hands-on trade, technical, and leadership games designed to push competitors to their limits.
CWI student David Rucker, who received a bronze medal in Telecommunications Cabling, competed in events from installing and fishing Ethernet cable through walls to responding to customer service issues while working under pressure.
For some of CWI’s team, this was the second time competing at the national event — which benefited Trey Aspelund, a recent graduate from the Cisco Networking and Securities Technologies program and gold medal winner in the Internetworking competition.
“I knew what the competition was going to look like, and I was able to create my own lab scenarios to prepare for the event,” said Aspelund. “I was told, from event organizers, I got the second highest score since the competition started,” he said.
The experience students gained in their classes before heading to the SkillsUSA national competition provided an invaluable foundation for the competition.
“CWI is a great place to go and you’ll be ahead of the curve,” said gold medal winner Dan Thompson in the CNC Milling Specialist event.
The trip was not all work for the team. They had a chance to watch a Louisville Bats game, eat amazing barbecue, and zipline in a huge cavern that used to be a limestone quarry.
Results
Trey Aspelund – Gold, Internetworking
Dan Thompson – Gold, CNC Milling Specialist
Griffin McCulloch – Silver, Related Technical Math
David Rucker – Bronze, Telecommunications Cabling
Josiah Duff – Bronze, Electronics Technology