The winners of the annual SkillsUSA Championships in PRINCIPLES OF TECHNOLOGY were announced last Wednesday evening, 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.

The Principles of Technology contest evaluates contestants understanding of basic technical concepts/principles of the applied sciences and ability to demonstrate and explain the concept/principle in action and application. Any technical concept may be demonstrated, provided it is related to the principles of technology curriculum and incorporates basic principles of the applied sciences.

Scott Watson, Hunter High School (Utah) chairs the Principles of Technology contest.

A national education team for prepared speech includes: Michael Mills, Lake Area Multi District (S.D.) chairs this effort.

SkillsUSA helps students discover and grow their career passions. As a nationwide partnership of students, instructors and industry working together, SkillsUSA works to ensure America has a skilled workforce. It helps every student excel. The nationwide career and technical education (CTE) student organization serves more than 320,000 high school, college and postsecondary students—and their instructors—in technical, skilled, and service occupation instructional programs. CTE is learning that works for America. SkillsUSA has the active support of more than 1,100 corporations, trade associations, business and labor unions at the national level. Over 10.5 million people have been annual members of SkillsUSA since its founding as The Vocational Industrial Clubs of America in 1965. SkillsUSA programs teach leadership, citizenship and character development to complement technical skill training. The organization emphasizes respect for the dignity of work, ethics, workmanship, scholarship and safety.