Every year, Career Center of Southern Illinois students have the chance to compete in the SkillsUSA competition. 

This year, the welding students stood out, with all three of the top state ranks going to CCSI students.

Valmeyer’s Dawson Goldschmidt, Chester’s Brock Vasquez and recent Sparta graduate Wesley Thielemann placed first, second and third in state competition, respectively.

Fourteen other CCSI welders also placed within the top 22 at state. Those within the top 10 included Jacob Werner (fourth), Bradley Ruch (fifth), Jacob Dehn (sixth), Haydan Gendron (seventh), Gage Garniss (ninth) and Jayden Schilling (10th).

CCSI welding instructor Gary Miller said while he has taught other state champions, this was a particularly good year for students in the program.

“Dawson is my sixth state champion,” Miller said. “A couple of years ago we did win state, but it’s a hard competition to win state. So, this was an overall better showing than we would normally do.”

In order to advance to state competition, students have to succeed at the regional level. Miller said this is usually a contest, but because of COVID-19, students could only qualify through a test taken on the computer.

Thielemann said the test not only included welding-specific questions, but also ones related to team building.

Thielemann said he found this part of the competition process more challenging than the hands-on welding projects – especially given the inconsistencies COVID-19 brought to academics.

“For me it wasn’t the welding side, it was more of the actual written test,” Thielemann said. “Studying was a big thing – it was huge this year. Obviously COVID was shutting schools down and stuff, so that was a little rough.”

All 19 or so of Miller’s students’ exam scores qualified them for the state competition.

“We did it in our own shop,” Miller said. “We were sent five different blueprints: one on oxy fuel cutting, one on shielded metal arc welding, one on gas metal arc welding, one on gas tungsten arc welding and one on flux-cored arc welding. They had four projects and a cutting project to do, and they did that in our own shop.”

Miller explained they then sent in pictures and videos of the students’ welds to be judged. Goldschmidt added proctors from big-name welding associations like the Boilermakers were sent out to each school to watch the competitors in person.

Goldschmidt and Vasquez found the time constraints to be challenging. 

Most of the projects had a 45-minute time limit, Vasquez said, and “that’s a lot of welding to do in 45 minutes.”

“You were in a rush, and that never ended really … it was just one big race,” Goldschmidt explained.

While Thielemann was not nervous about his welding, both Goldschmidt and Vasquez said they did not expect to rank so high.

Vasquez said his stick burnt through a couple of times and he thought this would seal his fate, so placing second was a pleasant surprise.

“To be honest, I didn’t think I would do second. I thought I was going to get last. I welded pretty bad to me, but I guess to the judges it looked pretty good,” Vasquez said. “It felt really awesome when Mr. Miller said I got second place.”

Placing first in the state qualified Goldschmidt for national competition. Miller said SkillsUSA and the American Welding Society sent out a certified welding instructor to watch Goldschmidt and score his projects.

Goldschmidt was tasked with multiple projects: aluminum with gas tungsten arc welding, steel with gas metal arc welding, mild steel with flux core arc welding and mild steel with shielded metal arc welding. 

Nationals provided the metal and the blueprints he needed to follow, Miller said.

“It was set up the same as the other ones, but I was the only one there, and the projects were a lot more advanced,” Goldschmidt said. “There was a lot more to do and it was harder to read the prints they gave you to do the projects.”

Overall, Goldschmidt placed 16th at nationals and his aluminum project ranked best in the nation.

“I was still glad to where I was placed,” Goldschmidt said.

Goldschmidt attributes the high placings to Miller, while Miller said it all boiled down to the students’ hard work ethic.

“Mr. Miller is a great teacher. It’s pretty well all thanks to him,” Goldschmidt said. “Whenever you have something wrong or you’re doing something wrong, he knows exactly what you’re doing wrong, and he’ll probably fix it that day.”

Miller also acknowledged the help of outside entities in ensuring his students could succeed in the competitions.

“We appreciate the local businesses, industry support, everybody who donated their time and a former student who donated the use of two new welding machines for the national competition,” Miller said.

Because Goldschmidt and Vasquez are incoming seniors, they will be eligible to compete in SkillsUSA next year. As a student at American Welding Academy, Thielemann does not think he will be allowed to compete next year.

“(Dawson) is only a junior and Brock is only a junior, too, so the top two are both juniors, which we’ll be looking forward to that for this coming school year,” Miller said.

Both students said they are looking forward to competing next year, and Goldschmidt is particularly looking forward to traveling for competition provided the pandemic cooperates. Because of COVID-19, state and nationals were held at the competitors’ home shops.

“Since COVID, we didn’t go anywhere,” Goldschmidt said. “I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to go somewhere for the competition, so I hope (that next year) I’m able to go not just out to school, but to some different state to do it. Apparently it’s pretty cool because you’ll see all your competitors.”