Technical Drafting Winners at SkillsUSA Championships

The winners of the annual SkillsUSA Championships in TECHNICAL DRAFTING were announced June 27 at the Awards Ceremony of the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference. The Conference was held June 23 - June 27, 2012, at the Municipal Auditorium, the Kemper Arena, H. Roe Bartle Hall, the downtown Marriott and the downtown Crowne Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. Over 5,600 outstanding career and technical education students joined in the excitement of hands on competition in 94 different trade, technical, and leadership fields.

Working against the clock and each other, the participants proved their expertise in job skills for occupations such as electronics, technical drafting, precision machining, medical assisting and culinary arts. There were also competitions in leadership skills, such as extemporaneous speaking and conducting meetings by parliamentary procedures.

SkillsUSA is the national organization for students in trade, industrial, technical and health occupations education. It sponsors the SkillsUSA Championships annually to recognize the achievements of career and technical education students and to encourage them to strive for excellence and pride in their chosen occupations.

The contests are planned by technical committees made up of representatives of labor and management and are designed to test the skills needed for a successful entry level performance in given occupational fields. Safety practices and procedures - an area of great concern to labor and management alike - are judged and graded and constitute a portion of a contestant’s score. A short video about the National Leadership and Skills Conference is available online at http://tinyurl.com/7rbzc96.

In the Technical Drafting contest, students demonstrate their preparation for employment in the field of technical drafting. The contest focuses on the solution of industry-developed problems by applying appropriate technical drafting skills and tools including computer-aided drafting (CAD).

The members of the national technical committee for the Technical Drafting contest include Co-chair Stephanie Kvamme, The CAD Store (Ariz.); Co-chair Floyd McWilliams, American Design Drafting Association (Ariz.); Mark Driscoll, 3Dconnexion, Inc. (Mass.); and, Dave Pancoast, DS SolidWorks Corporation (Mass.).

The national education committee assists the national technical committee. Members include Joseph Bouchard, Central Montco Technical High School (Pa.); Val Burch, North Henderson High School (N.C.); Gary Chapman, Calvert Career Center (Md.); and, Woody Fruge, Sowela Technical Community College (La.).