The Upper Grand District School Board had two gold medal winners at this spring’s Secondary Provincial Skills Competition – both from Centre Wellington District High School (CWDHS).
Calum Offer won for IT network administration and Ashton Martin won for skilled trades entrepreneurship.
While Offer went on to compete at the Skills Canada National Competition in Edmonton from June 4 to 5, Martin’s journey ended at the provincial competition in Toronto from May 7 and 8 because his category didn’t have a national competition.
This year’s skills competition was the second for Offer, a Grade 12 plus student, and while he competed in the national competition he did not place in the top three.
However, this year was also the first year he won provincials and he attributes his success to last year’s experience.
“That loud environment, it was so hard,” he said.
“I remember wasting probably over the course of the day like an hour and a half (last year) … where … I can’t focus on what’s going on … so knowing that going in the second year made everything so much easier.”
His coach, Centre Wellington teacher Tim King, agreed.
“Cal’s approach tends to be first time in you look things over and then you kind of experience it,” King said.
“If we had him one more time it would be gold next year (at nationals), I’d bet money on it.”
Offer comes by computer knowledge naturally; his dad works in IT and his brother is in computer science at the University of Waterloo, where Offer will be joining him in September for a computer science co-op program.
For the Skills Ontario and Skills Canada competitions Offer worked on tasks much like an IT technician would in the real world. Some were physical and some included networks or routers.
“What they’re trying to assess is how quickly you can access the tools that Windows gives you to diagnose a problem,” he explained.
“So when you’re getting on a job site and they’re like ‘my computer isn’t doing this,’ or whatever, it’s testing your ability to know where to look to find that type of thing.”
King, who has taken students to skills competitions previously, said each new competitor helps inform the next student how to take on the competition.
“Now all of his experiences comes back and whoever we send next time has the benefit of his approach to things, which is different from the last guy we had who went to nationals,” King said adding that the competition atmosphere helps students prepare for the real world.
“I think it builds really strong resilience in the students,” he said. “I think they come out of it feeling really self-assured and they should.”
This year’s skills competition was a first for Ashton Martin, who placed gold in the skilled trades entrepreneurship category.
“Basically it’s like owning your own business, so I had to create a business plan and pitch my business to a couple of judges in the room and … project sales and … everything throughout the year,” Martin said.
While theoretical for many competitors, the Grade 12 student is already a business owner.
He established SIP Entertainment last year.
“I make music videos, I do photography and graphic design, so it’s like an all-around media business,” Martin said, adding he wanted to start a business and enjoyed making music videos after doing so to promote his scooter skills to magazines when he was a pro skater.
Martin said once he learned the basics of the necessary computer programs on YouTube he was able to teach himself the more advanced functions.
Those videos were part of his presentation for the provincial skills competition.
Coach and business teacher Ruth Meston said Martin made an impression at the competition.
“The judges at Skills Ontario were very experienced businessmen and they were very impressed by Ashton, just his maturity, his approach, his thoughtfulness, and he’s like head and shoulders above all the rest of the candidates,” she said.
“He really did us proud. He’s an adult with an adult business.”
Silver: Lily vanHuisseling and Zach Golding in 2D character animation (team of two), CWDHS; Anna Toll, architectural technology and design, Erin District High School; Cameron Anderson, CNC woodworking, Erin District High School; and Jade Ritter, job skill demonstration, CWDHS.
Bronze: Jacob Bray, CNC woodworking, Erin District High School; and Madison Galloway, culinary arts, CWDHS.
