Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Join us as we visit a program driving students to find success in the car care business.

On this episode of the Supercast, we stop by the Auto Mechanic Shop at West Jordan High School. That's where we meet the Auto Shop teacher and a student who just placed among the best in the country in a car repair competition. This truly is a class that is jump-starting careers.

We're here in the West Jordan High School Auto Shop to talk about the SkillsUSA competition. Thanks for taking time. Introduce yourselves and let's talk about the competition.

Bryan Liddell:
I'm Bryan Liddell, Mr. Liddell, the automotive teacher here at West Jordan High.

Eli:
I'm Eli Atwood.

Anthony Godfrey:
And Eli, tell me about the competition. What does it involve and how did it go?

Eli:
So during the competition, we did brake inspection, we did tire inspection, we looked up service data, did a job interview, electrical stuff. So we diagnosed an electrical circuit, we had to build an electrical circuit. There's a written test and it went pretty well. I got 14th place out of 30.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. Where was the competition?

Eli:
It was in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anthony Godfrey:
Atlanta, Georgia. And your competition was from all over the country?

Eli:
Yeah, there was one person from every state. Well, not exactly, but there was-

Anthony Godfrey:
Roughly.

Eli:
Yeah, roughly one person from every state.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's interesting to me that they add all of these other layers to it. It's not just about working on the vehicle, it's also about the interview and the written test, tell me about that part of it.

Eli:
Yeah, so the interview, you're pretty much interviewing to apply for a shop or something like that. And then the test is just an ASC test that they take. There's 50 questions and you got 20 minutes to do it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Twenty minutes to answer how many questions?

Eli:
50.

Anthony Godfrey:
50? Well, I would get three of them answered and they'd all be wrong. That’s how much I know about auto mechanics. Tell me what got you interested in auto mechanics. I know from personal experience just how good you are at this.

Eli:
Thank you. So I've just always been interested in tinkering at home and then I came here to the high school and Bryan really got me involved in it. I've just been interested ever since. I'm working at an auto shop right now and I love it.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what type of work do you do at the auto shop? Just whatever comes your way?

Eli:
Everything, yeah, just automotive repair.

Anthony Godfrey:
And is that what you want to do as a career? You want to continue with that?

Eli:
Yeah, I'd like to be a mechanic and then one day own a shop.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's fantastic.

Eli:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me a little bit about this program. What do students do to qualify for this national competition?

Bryan Liddell:
We have a district competition, and then we go to the state competition. And each state gets to take one student in MLR, which is what Eli went in, which is Maintenance and Light Repair. And then there's also the ASE test. So you can take two stu