(Ed Zawatski, Nathan James, Suzan Smith)

 

Hancock County Schools congratulates Nathan James on winning gold at the SkillsUSA National Championships held in Kansas City, Missouri the week of June 21st thru June 25th, 2010. Nathan was the only single student contestant to place first from the entire state of West Virginia this year. He graduated from Oak Glen high school this past school year, as well as from the John D. Rockefeller Career Center, where he has been a student in the Electronics Technology program since his sophomore year. Nathan competed in a competition known as Electronic Installation and Maintenance, a brand new contest this year that deals with “smart house technologies”, which is a parallel competency to Electronics Technology. The areas of technology that Nathan was responsible for include “home theatre” installation, set up, and operation; “networking” as it pertains to “smart house” data signal flow and control; “home burglar alarm” system installation and integration; “smart house “control of lighting and home appliances; physical cabling and connector termination for all systems; as well as a comprehensive written exam on all contest technical competencies and SkillsUSA organizational information.

 

   While Nathan did acquire much of the technical knowledge and skills required for his competition from his Electronics Technology program at the Career Center, he also needed to do a tremendous amount of self directed study on many competencies dealing with “smart house technologies” and specific specialized “networking” protocols in order to be properly prepared for both state competition (which he also won 1st place gold at Beckley in March) as well as national competition. This stands as a testament as to the kind of high caliper, top shelf student Nathan truly is. During his three year tenure as a student at the Career Center, he maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA each and every semester, along with virtually perfect attendance throughout. He also took advantage of college credit offered through the articulation agreement between the Career Center, and West Virginia Northern Community College, which is accredited through the “EDGE” credit program. Nathan earned 6 college credit hours each semester during his Electronics Technology classes at the Career Center. Ed Zawatski is Nathan’s Electronics Technology instructor, and stated that he absolutely elated and so very proud of Nathan for going all the way to win gold at the SkillsUSA nationals this year. He said that only “the best of the best” in the entire country medal at the national competition, and each contest is designed to be extremely challenging. He also stated that Nathan has brought great pride to Hancock County, and everyone should be very proud of his accomplishment and success.                                                                                                    

 

  When asked about his future plans, Nathan stated that he is now in pursuit of as many college scholarships and grants as he can acquire in order to go on to a four year college to continue his education in Electronics, Computer, and Network Engineering.