Elgin Community College students go metal to metal

In a small, quiet classroom in Elgin Community College, four local students competed Saturday for a big prize.

Four students in ECC's Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration program worked against the clock fastening rivets, scoring metal and studying instructions to make a steel toolbox.

One of the ECC students will be awarded first place in Illinois SkillsUSA's statewide sheet metal competition.

SkillsUSA is a national organization of more than 280,000 vocational students and instructors that teaches leadership skills and sponsors annual competitions for students in high school and college.

Because of declining interest, Illinois' sheet metal competition hasn't been offered in a few years.

But it rejoined the more than 100 competitions offered in Illinois each year because sheet metal is a strong suit for ECC's Heating and Air Conditioning students, professor Andy Erbach said.

"We found out sheet metal was a category -- something our students do well -- and we wanted to participate," Erbach said.

All four students who competed Saturday -- Matthew Abangan of St. Charles, Demetrio Diaz of Elgin, Steve Artisuk of Hampshire and Thomas Mauro of Algonquin -- had to pass a written test to qualify.

Most likely, three of the ECC students will capture first, second and third place in the sheet metal competition -- as long as they do an adequate job.

"This gives them something to strive for," said Larry Huck, registration consultant for Illinois SkillsUSA. "It improves how much they might wind up learning."

Even while competing against each other, the students helped each other finish by the Saturday afternoon deadline.

"It's a good opportunity to get us from school to work," Diaz said. "It's challenging, but we're going to do the best we can."

Abangan said the task didn't faze him.

"It's pretty simple," he said. "I'm not interested in it, but I'm pretty good at it."

The four students will join two of their ECC peers this week in Springfield. They will face off in the Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration competition and find out the winner of Saturday's challenge.