Aurora grad wins state construction competition
After a rocky journey of more than four years with SkillsUSA, Aurora’s Connor Smith has finally hit the big time and punched his ticket to the national finals in Atlanta, Ga. this summer. The Northeast Community College (Norfolk) freshman was the winner of the construction division of the SkillsUSA collegiate competition held April 11-13 at the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island.
For the competition Smith constructed a scale model floor, a wall, a window, roof rafters and other features in a little over four hours while competing against six other contestants, four of whom were his classmates from NCC.
“So every year, right when we walk in, the competition starts and they hand us a blueprint, basically, of what they want us to build in roughly a six to seven hour time frame,” Smith said. “Usually it consists of about a four by four foot floor with a roughly four foot by four foot wall with a window in it. And then just some basic rafters with a ridge and things like that. Basically everything you would find on a house just on a very small scale.”
Smith, who grew up in the construction trades in Aurora (his father, Bob runs Collingham Construction), said he joined SkillsUSA as a freshman at AHS because he wanted to gain practical experience in home building and he saw the organization as his pathway to do so. However, his freshman year coincided with the COVID pandemic of 2020 which meant there was no state competition that year.
In his sophomore year he was finally able to compete, however, he had to do it remotely.
“My sophomore year it was virtual,” he said. “So I had to set up a computer in the wood shop at the high school and get on a Zoom call, and basically be on a Zoom call for about seven hours, all while building my project that we had to build that year. I had to build it on a Zoom call so they could prove that I wasn’t cheating. And that year we had to trailer our projects to a drop zone where they would grade them.”
That year Smith finished third but, although he was able to be in the live competition in his junior year, he did not place at state. He served as treasurer of the local chapter that year and was elected president during his senior year.
“I studied for the carpentry competition again because I really, really wanted to place first,” he said. “I wanted first so I could go to nationals in Atlanta and ended up getting third again that year at the state level.”
Pursuing his dream
Keeping his eye on going to nationals, Smith decided on NCC for college because of its SkillsUSA chapter so he could learn more about new construction and to continue his pursuit of a state title in the construction competition at the collegiate level.
“So this year with having lab class, we learned basically everything from how to frame a floor to a wall to the ceiling. Everything frame you could ever need to know about building a house, which was exactly what I needed to kind of push me over the edge in this carpentry competition,” Smith said. “We also had practice time on Wednesday nights that I got to fine tune some things for the competition coming up. Now, granted, this whole time you have no idea what you’re going to build that coming year in the state convention... so you’re basically just practicing on what you think you might build and kind of hoping that it’s something close to that. So you practice floor framing, wall framing, practice ceiling framing, things like that.”
Smith says when he arrived at the state competition he was quite confident walking in, but was also nervous because “I actually knew what I was doing this time but was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to perform in an environment like that knowing what I was doing.”
Contrary to his initial fears, Smith said he actually did well in the building process at state and finished well within the time he was given. And after four years of concerted effort he finally got his opportunity to go up on stage and be recognized as the winner of the competition. He was even more excited about the fact that he had qualified to go to Atlanta for the national competition June 24-28.
He won’t take too much time to revel in his accomplishment, however, as he now turns his focus toward Atlanta.
Prepping for the big game
“I’m going to continue to practice the things that I practiced for the state level of competition, but the national level competition is going to be a lot harder,” he said. “They’re gonna ask you to do a lot more advanced framing type of things, so I’m gonna have to practice things that I’ve never really done before that we haven’t quite learned in college yet and that are kind of ahead of what we’ve been taught. So it’s gonna be a lot of learning in between now and June.”
When he comes back to Aurora for summer break, Smith will have to fit that study and practice into helping his dad and running the mowing business he started several years ago. He said Smith Lawn Care has approximately 20 clients including both private homes and businesses.
“I’m excited to go; it’s the big stage,” Smith said of the national competition. “There’s gonna be a lot of people there and I’ll compete against basically one representative from every state that comes for the carpentry competition, so it’s basically me against the best 50 in the nation. So it’s gonna be it’s gonna be crazy.”
Another member of the Smith family will also be traveling south this summer. Smith said his younger brother, Parker is set to go to Orlando, Fla. for a national FBLA competition a week later.