PUTTING THEIR SKILLS TO USE
Students build home projects in construction competition at NARI show
As they were handed identical blueprints Thursday afternoon, four-person teams of high school students from around the state hurried back to designated spots on the floor of the NARI Spring Home Improvement Show where they’ll build their project.
A few minutes later, after they reviewed the blueprint and a list of materials, students headed to a nearby area where they grabbed 2-by-4s and other supplies — about $2,000 worth of building materials per team. The tools they brought from home already were at their mini construction sites, just waiting for work to begin in earnest early Friday morning.
The goal: In 111⁄2 hours Friday and Saturday, in front of judges from the industry, construct from scratch a section of a home featuring plumbing and electricity, a door and a window, and do it better
than the other teams entered in the annual SkillsUSA Carpentry Teamworks.
The hardest part, said Noelle Elfering, a returning member of last year’s Wisconsin champion Barneveld High School group, is simply making sure to work as a team.
“I think for us it was, honestly, just teamwork,” said Elfering, 18, a senior. “It wasn’t so much the building. We knew how to build all of it.”
The display of youthful construction talent and teamwork is in its second year at the NARI show in the Wisconsin Expo Center at State Fair Park. It’s meant not only to be a state competition among high school students, but a way to promote building trades as a career.
The Great Recession, which devastated the homebuilding industry in the U.S., led many skilled carpenters, drywallers and others to permanently leave the industry. That contributed to a shortage of labor now that home construction has been revived.
The SkillsUSA competition, a program that collaborates with school districts around the country, is one of many efforts nationwide to help fill the skilled workforce gap.
Brent Kindred, executive director of SkillsUSA Wisconsin, said the carpentry program — SkillsUSA also has competitions in robotics and many other fields — is a partnership among teachers, students and the industry to present students with the possibility of a career in construction.
“It’s really meant to mimic what would happen on a job site if they were out in the industry doing it,” Kindred said of the carpentry competition at the NARI show. “They have to work as a team. They have to plan. They have to be able to talk to one another and figure it out.”
In addition to their project, participants are judged on safety — wearing safety glasses, for instance — and professionalism. Team members also must have a resume, which is part of SkillsUSA’s goal of developing personal career skills as well as job know-how. SkillsUSA has chapters is more than 180 schools in the state.
This year’s carpentry competition features teams from 14 high schools in Wisconsin. The winner will advance to the national competition this summer in Louisville, Kentucky.
The 2019 contest is the fourth SkillsUSA carpentry competition in Wisconsin, and the second to be held at the NARI show. Diane Welhouse, executive director of NARI Milwaukee, pushed for
“This just happens to be demonstrating real-life skills that these students are going to be able to use in their careers, and we should be making it a spectator sport and allowing the community to see this and know what’s going on in our school systems.” Diane Welhouse Executive director of NARI Milwaukee
NARI’s charitable foundation to bring it into the show after she saw it being conducted in the warehouse of an association member.
“I walk in and I see these five teams — 20 students — and I’m completely blown away,” said Welhouse, a former general contractor. “I mean, the talent, the skills, the teamwork, the professionalism that was going on behind closed doors in a warehouse. And the only people who are watching it are the judges.”
Welhouse decided then that the competition needed a public venue with NARI in the Wisconsin Exposition Center.
“This just happens to be demonstrating real-life skills that these students are going to be able to use in their careers, and we should be making it a spectator sport and allowing the community to see this and know what’s going on in our school systems,” Welhouse said. “And it further promotes that there are great careers, not only financially rewarding but personally satisfying, for students to get into in the trades.”
The SkillsUSA carpentry competition is growing.
“Before my time we had two teams, then we went to five teams, then we went to 11 teams, and this year we have 14. Our goal is to continue growing it,” Welhouse said.
Mitchell Stegerwald is the leader of a team from the Blair-Taylor School District, which is north of La Crosse. The senior said he doesn’t know whether a career in the skilled trades is something he’ll pursue, but he and his team were ready for this year’s competition.
“Organization is really key to this whole thing,” he said. “We have to grab the material and lay it all out. From there, it’s all teamwork.”
Jackson Vacha, a junior at current champ Barneveld High School, said he’s not sure a career in the skilled trades is for him, but his exposure to it in and out of school has him thinking about it.
“Recently I’ve enjoyed doing plumbing, so I might take an interest in that later on,” Vacha said.
The finished projects will be on display Sunday. When the show concludes, parts from the projects will be donated to Habitat for Humanity ReStore.