The SkillsUSA Ohio State Championships recently took place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center on May 5. The SkillsUSA Ohio State Championships is one of the nation's largest workforce development events for middle-school, high school and college/postsecondary students enrolled in public career and technical education programs. SkillsUSA Ohio hosts the annual event, which is considered the largest skill competition in Ohio and one of the largest days of industry volunteerism in Ohio. Students compete in over 130 different occupational areas each year to meet the demands of new or expanding careers. The skills and technical sciences contests included Automotive Refinishing Technology, Collision Repair Technology, Automotive Maintenance and Light Repair, Automotive Service Technology, Diesel Equipment Technology, Motorcycle Service Technology, and new this year - Automotive Customer Experience.

To advance to the state competition, students had to compete in five different regional competitions around the state, with four students per region advancing to the state competition. For the Automotive Service Technology competition, students moved through a number of stations - most of them hands on - to advance through the competition. Sponsors and judges included Sinclair community College, Columbus State Community College, University of Northwest Ohio, Snap-On, Subaru of America, Toyota, Dave Gill Chevrolet, and OADA.

OADA was proud to host and judge the "soft skills" component of the Automotive Service Technology  competition. This involved completing a job application, a job interview, and a customer service interaction. Tara-Lynn Morgan from Dave Gill Chevrolet judged the customer service interaction, where she acted as the service customer while each student explained a repair, went over a repair order, and explained the diagnosis and charges to the customer. This station judged students on skills such as professionalism, making eye contact, and being comfortable interacting with customers.

Other dealership involvement included the Great Lakes Auto Group and Germain Automotive Partnership who were both involved in the Automotive Maintenance and Light Repair competition. New to SkillsUSA Ohio this year was the Automotive Customer Experience competition, which was judged by the Reineke Family of Dealerships.

Winning the Automotive Service Technology competition was Carter Desatnik from Maplewood Career Center in Ravenna. Carter is currently working at Daystar Ford in Garrettsville. Carter is scheduled to compete in the National Competition held in Atlanta, Georgia, from June 1-5.

Finishing second was Julian Moore from Mahoning County Career and Technical Center. Qutaiba Khalid from Tolles Career & Technical Center took third place.

Other competition winners included:

Automotive Customer Experience - Team A from Vanguard-Sentinel CTC - Havic Smith, Calvin Scherf and Berlynn Goeller

Automotive Maintenance & Light Repair - Cody Lindstrom from Cuyahoga Valley Career Center

Automotive Refinishing Technology - Drew Faeth from Vanguard-Sentinel CTC

Collision Repair Technology - Alysa Jameson from Vanguard-Sentinel CTC

Want to get involved? Please reach out to Chuck Taylor at Sinclair Community College at 937-512-2314 or by emailing charles.taylor@sinclair.edu. You can also reach out to DeAnna Zahniser at OADA, dzahniser@oada.com, or 614-923-2231.