2014 State Conference Press Release
2014 SkillsUSA Minnesota State Conference Press Release
Minneapolis, MN, April 2, 2014 | download as PDF
The SkillsUSA Championships, held in Bloomington, MN took place on March 28-30, 2014. The conference was a showcase of career and technical education students where more than 800 outstanding career and technical education students competed in 80 hands-on trade, technical and leadership contests. Minnesota state colleges captured gold, silver and bronze medals for 207college division students at the SkillsUSA Minnesota 2014 State Leadership and Skills Conference, at the DoubleTree Hotel in Bloomington. The competitions focused on technical skill demonstration where students captured gold, silver and bronze medals in 80 competitive events in both divisions, with over 590 college students from 25 campuses of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities the competition focused on technical skill demonstration in 60 competitive events. Minnesota High School students captured 200 gold, silver and bronze medals for the high school division in 60 competitive events, with over 218 students from 30 high school campuses.
The SkillsUSA Championships, held in Bloomington, MN took place March 28-30, 2014, as part of the SkillsUSA 47th annual State Leadership and Skills Conference a showcase of career and technical education students. During the weekend hundreds of outstanding career and technical education students—all local contest winners competed in different trade, technical and leadership fields. During the state competition, students worked against the clock and each other, proving their expertise in occupations like welding, computer-aided drafting, precision machining, medical assisting and culinary arts. All contests are run with the help of over 500 industry, trade associations, and labor organizations, and test competencies are set by industry. In addition, leadership contestants demonstrated their skills, which included extemporaneous speaking and conducting meetings by parliamentary procedure.
Friday afternoon featured Keynote speaker: Dr. Annette Parker, President of South Central College and special greetings were brought to all conference attendees from Board of Trustee Louise Sundin, Minnesota State Colleges & Universities. Honorary medallion presenters Sunday morning included: President Annette Parker, South Central College, President Rassoul Dastmozd, Saint Paul College, Dr. Paula Palmer, Director Career and Technical Education, Minnesota Department of Education, Darren Kermes, Executive Director, SouthWest Metro Educational Cooperative. SkillsUSA Advisors of the Year for 2014 were announced: College Division: Mr. Todd Huxford, HVAC-R instructor from South Central College- North Mankato campus, and Mr. William Garceau, Engineering instructor from Technical High School, St. Cloud, MN. The American Welding Society-Northwest Section was awarded the 2014 Industry Partner of the Year, and President Kevin Kopischke, Alexandria Technical and Community College received the Friend of SkillsUSA award for 2014.
Top student winners received gold, silver and bronze medallions. Many also received prizes such as tools of their trade and/or scholarships to further their careers and education totaling over $145, 000 and over the past seven years Minnesota students have received over 3.1 millions dollars. The SkillsUSA Championships is for high school and college-level students who are members of SkillsUSA. SkillsUSA first place winners will represent Minnesota in Kansas City this June 23-27, 2014 for the 50th annual National Leadership and Skills Conference (NLSC), a showcase of career and technical education students.
SkillsUSA is a national partnership of students, teachers and industry, working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. SkillsUSA chapters help students who are preparing for careers in technical, skilled and service occupations excel. SkillsUSA has more than 310,000 students and instructors as members.
For more information, visit http://www.mnskillsusa.org or http://www.skillsusa.org/events/nlsc.shtml
Sincerely,
Jennifer Polz, Executive Director
SkillsUSA Minnesota