Rhinelander High School students like senior Aiden Ostermann have been working for months, outside of class time, to perfect their business skills.
“We'll study for our entrepreneurship via tests and like role plays between me and my teammates,” said Ostermann.
In the regional SkillsUSA Wisconsin competition at Northcentral Technical College Friday, he’ll be competing in the Job Skill Demonstration to prepare for the Entrepreneurship category at state in the spring.
Last year was his first year competing in SkillsUSA. He’s looking forward to doing it again this year.
“Most enjoyably is just challenging, like my own personal skill sets,” said Ostermann. “I really enjoy the public speaking aspect of it, when you're talking with the judges, and you're just kind of growing your skills of talking face to face, especially with older individuals.”
Ostermann was one of three Rhinelander students competing last year.
This year, that number has jump to 13.
Working in teams and individuals, students will be putting their skills to the test in engineering, CO2 cars, job skill demonstrations, and woodworking display.
Tech-ed teacher and SkillsUSA advisor Bennett Rozek thinks the program at Rhinelander will continue to grow.
“One thing when talking to industry partners is soft skills. It’s a big thing that they look for when hiring kids, especially right out of high school,” said Rozek. “This competition really opens up that opportunity to give students that chance to show their soft skills and practice and learn what is right, what is wrong for job interviews, eye contact, things like that really matter when you get a job after high school.”
Sophomore Hank Kowieski is also headed back to SkillsUSA for a second year. He’ll be on the team with Ostermann competing in the Job Skills Demonstration category.
“This definitely is the biggest kind of step up, because they're forcing you to do things that you do kind of in a job revolving around your competition,” said Kowieski. “They judge kind of on how you can do that. It makes you step into the shoes of someone who would be working that job.”
More than 170 students from 18 schools, including Antigo and Merrill, are competing at SkillsUSA regionals in Wausau Friday.
The SkillsUSA Wisconsin State Leadership and Skill Conference will be held in April in Madison.
