Louisville, KY—Two Mitchell Technical Institute students won national recognition at the annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference held June 22-26 in Louisville, KY.
Matthew Boden, Tabor, 2015 graduate of MTI’s Heating & Cooling Technology program, took first place in the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration contest. Boden was the only South Dakota student to win a medal. In total South Dakota had 17 students finish in the top ten in their contests.
Jean Van Driel, Mitchell, Business Management II student, was elected to the National Officer Team for the 2015-16 school year.
A total of five MTI students, part of a 45-student delegation from South Dakota, attended the competition. Three students from the Mitchell Career and Technical Education Academy (MCTEA) also competed at the high school level. More than 6,000 students competed in 100 occupational and leadership skill areas. Advisors Jason Juhnke and Justin Hauge, MTI instructors, and Eric Schramm, MCTEA instructor, accompanied the group.
SkillsUSA is a national organization that serves technical, skilled and service occupation instructional programs in public high schools, career and technical centers and schools and two- and four-year colleges. SkillsUSA annually serves more than 320,000 student members annually, organized into more than 3,900 schools and 54 state and territorial associations (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands). SkillsUSA programs also help to establish industry standards for job skill training in the classroom.