ABC Nevada Chapter supports and participates in Skills USA at both the local and national level. SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. SkillsUSA help every student to excel and employs an applied method instruction for preparing America’s high performance workers in public career and technical instructional programs. It provides quality experiences for students in leadership, teamwork, citizenship and character development. It builds and reinforces self-confidence, work attitudes and communication skills. It emphasizes total quality at work: high ethical standards, superior work skills, life-long education, and pride in the dignity of work. Formerly known as VICA (Vocational Industrial Clubs of America), SkillsUSA also promotes understanding of the free-enterprise system and involvement in community service.
SkillsUSA has over 13,000 chapters across the county. Currently, 14,544 teachers and school administrators serve as professional members. More than 1,000 business, industry and labor sponsors actively support SkillsUSA through financial aid, in-kind contributions and involvement of their people in SkillsUSA activities at the national level. Many more work directly with state associations and local chapters.
Nevada SkillsUSA
March 15 & 16, 2011
Approximately 1100 high school and post-secondary students from across the state that came to compete in a number of disciplines.
Students came to show their skills in the areas of Architectural Drafting, Cabinetmaking, Carpentry, Nursing Assistant, Power Equipment Technology, Web design, and Broadcast New Production just to name a few.
Associated Builders and Contractors were extremely pleased to again Chair & Sponsor the Teamworks contest. This is a challenging and exciting contest that really puts the student's construction skills to the test. Teamworks is a project that incorporates carpentry, plumbing, masonry, and electrical all in one contest. The students work in teams of four and this year we had nine teams, which is the largest group ever. For this years competition the students would build a small 6x8 "house" that ABC would then donate to the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary to be used as bird aviaries. The Sanctuary had a fire a few months back so they had no place to house the birds and were very grateful to receive these homes.
On March 15th, the teams were given the blueprints and they had two hours to come up with a plan and mission statement for their team. They then had to make an oral presentation to the Judges for the competition as if they were a company bidding on the job. They spoke about safety, outlined their team objectives, identified their team's roles, and gave a brief description of their strategy for problem solving. Each team was given a score on their presentation that would add into their score for the hands-on part of the competition.
On Wednesday the 16th the students arrived at 7:30 sharp for a brief orientation before starting the project at 8:00 a.m. They were very excited and nerves were running high as there was a lot to do as the project had to be completed by 4:00 p.m. By planning the day before, the students fell into a nice pattern and everyone seemed to know what they wanted to accomplish before lunch and the morning went by very quickly. Pizza and soda was provided by the ABC staff but the students really just wanted to get back to work. The morning was spent on carpentry, getting walls and trusses put up and the afternoon was focused on the other trades. Students worked on their individual specialties and completed the plumbing, masonry, and electrical for the small houses they were building. By the ending bell we had many teams that were completely done and lots of tired students.
In the end the team that will represent Nevada at the National Teamworks Competition in Kansas is from the Southeast Career and Technical Academy located in Las Vegas. They are a great group of students that will represent our state well. The silver medal team is Battle Mountain High School and Bronze is from Academy for Career Education. The Post-Secondary team from Desert Rose received a Silver Medal.
Thank you to the following Sponsors: AC Houston Lumber, Interstate Plumbing and A/C, GSL Electric, Helix Electric and Lowe's
ABC would also like to recognize the Judges who helped make this event a succeess: Byron Lacey - Pete King Corp., Shane Kilgore - GSL Electric, Mike Turner - Helix Electric, Dave Galbreath - GSL Electric, Doug Roundy - Interstate Plumbing and A/C, James Colegrove - 3G Construction Group and Kevin Murphey - Plumbing Judge
National SkillsUSA
June 19 - 24, 2011
Information Coming Soon...
Think Construction Think ABC