10 OCM BOCES students place in top three at NYS SkillsUSA competition

Friday, April 25, 2025

10 OCM BOCES students place in top three at NYS SkillsUSA competition

Ten students from OCM BOCES earned top-three finishes at the 2025 SkillsUSA New York State competition, bringing home two first-place awards, five second-place awards and three third-place honors.

The competition, held April 23–25 at the New York State Fairgrounds, showcased the talents of students from 13 OCM BOCES Career & Technical Education (CTE) and New Vision programs.

Forty-nine students from OCM BOCES qualified for the state-level event after competing in the SkillsUSA Regional Competition on Feb. 7 at SUNY Morrisville. You can find the full list of participants here. 

The OCM BOCES SkillsUSA advisors were Danielle Curtis and Jonathan Sawicki from the OCM BOCES Thompson Road Campus, and Jamie Reed and Dillon Zumbolo from the OCM BOCES Cortlandville Campus. The advisors, their colleagues and other OCM BOCES staff worked diligently for several weeks to help students prepare for the regional and state competitions.

OCM BOCES CTE Director Eric Comtois said he and the entire OCM BOCES staff were impressed and pleased with the students' accomplishments at the Fairgrounds. SkillsUSA is invaluable, he said, because it "helps build leaders within our programs and in the community."

"We are very proud of all our students who competed at the New York State level, exhibiting extraordinary technical and professional skills," he said. "They represent the great talent in our region."

SkillsUSA is a national workforce development organization that "empowers students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members," according to its website. At the Fairgounds, roughly 2,500 students participated in the statewide event, which included trade and leadership competitions.

First-place OCM BOCES award recipients were Tyler O’Connor (Chittenango, Heavy Equipment Operations) and William Bell (Cazenovia, Power Equipment Technology). Because of their first-place finishes, both will qualify for the national SkillsUSA competition this summer.

Second-place recipients were Timothy Cowin (Westhill, Medical Terminology), David Fisher (West Genesee, Collision Damage Appraisal), Matthew Barbaro (Marcellus, Diesel Equipment Technology), Emma Kadlubowski (Fabius-Pompey, Basic Health Care Skills) and Mallory Wessels (North Syracuse, Cake Decorating).

Third-place recipients were Elanor Chick (Fabius-Pompey and Innovation Tech, Medical Math), Isaac Cicione (Baldwinsville, Welding) and Nickolas Scholz (Liverpool, Carpenter’s Assistant).

OCM BOCES would like to congratulate our top place winners and all of our participants for their excellent work and representation at the state competition! We are very proud of you!

Find more photos of the competition here.