Companies scope out high school talent at SkillsUSA Challenge
BELOIT — More than 200 students from 13 different school districts came to Beloit Memorial High School on Monday to compete in a SkillsUSA challenge, hoping to earn a spot in the state competition in Madison.
The volunteers running the 19 competitions in eight different skills categories seemed to be just as excited to be there as the students..
“Our company headquarters is now just a mile down the road,” said Thaddeus Grzeskowiak, plant manager for The Caldwell Group. “We took a tour of Beloit Memorial and we’ve been getting moving on an internship program when this competition came up in our conversations. We felt it was a good opportunity to evaluate the talent at Beloit Memorial and the other local talent that’s coming as well as get our company name out in front of these students.”
Caldwell brought four judges and several other staffers specifically to help with the three welding competitions.
SkillsUSA is the largest career and technical student organization in the United States with over 440,000 students in 13,000 chapters.
“We competed last year at (a SkillsUSA challenge in) Watertown and the kids really wanted to get the competition here so people could see what we are doing here,” said Joe Kluge, who is in his fourth year of teaching welding at Beloit Memorial High School. “Our (SkillsUSA) chapter is pretty strong and its growing. They wanted to show off a little.”
Over the past 10 years, school districts across the country have poured an increasing amount of resources into adding and improving career and technical education. The massive wave of retirements by the Baby Boomer generation has created workforce shortages across the professional spectrum, from doctors and nurses and teachers to advanced manufacturing and infrastructure.
Perhaps no local district has put as much effort into its CTE offerings as Beloit. According to the Wisconsin School Report Cards, Beloit Memorial High School had 325 students participate in a work-based learning class in 2023-2024. That was 24.5% of the school. The state average was 8.5%.
The 19 competitions were in eight different skills:
* 3D printing.
* Cabinet making.
* Computer Numerical Control milling.
* Culinary arts.
* Job interview.
* Job skill demonstrations.
* Prepared speech.
* Welding.
