Norwich Tech Grad Nation’s Top High School Electrician
July 25, 2016
Daria Stifel came home from the national Skills USA competition in Kentucky a little downcast.
Despite doing what she’d thought was her best in the electrical construction wiring contest, she came out in 10th place.
Then she took a closer look at her scores. And after some inquiry and re-checking among the judges, an error on her score sheet was corrected, giving her the gold medal among the nation’s young electricians. It’s a groundbreaking win, since she was the only girl in the field of 43 secondary-school competitors.
“I wasn’t entirely confident of my abilities,” said Stifel. “I was a little bit disappointed because I thought I could do better.”
But when she reviewed her score sheet online after she returned home, something didn’t look right. One section of the judging standards indicated she had earned a 10 percent for accuracy – “when I was sure I had at least put 95 percent [of the wiring] in the right spot.”
She consulted with her Norwich Tech electrical shop department head, Jamie Lamitie, and sent him a picture of her scorecard.
“We made the decision to contact the national association,” said Stifel. “Mistakes happen. It could be human error, it might have been a typographical error. If not, I wanted to know what I had done wrong so I could improve on it for the future.”
After a long wait – the association’s board was on vacation – Stifel and Lamitie got word that her score of 10 percent was actually 100 percent, putting her in first place. The association offered her their apologies for the mistake and told her that both she and her school would be receiving the gold medal.
“I was overjoyed that I won,” said Stifel. “As the only girl competing, it’s a nice moment to show what you can do in a male-dominated field. It was still a little sad that I didn’t get to go on stage with all my friends there, but I had a wonderful time down there and met lots of people. I was exposed to a whole new type of world down there.”
SkillsUSA is a collaborative program involving students, educators, and industry in support of career and technical education in the nation’s classrooms. Last year, more than 6,000 students competed at the national level in more than 100 events.
Categories span a wide range of tech school disciplines, including such disparate fields as nursing, aviation technology, culinary arts, welding, nail care, and robotics.
In Stifel’s case, competitors were given a written test as well as a wiring project to complete. They were judged on the function and appearance of their finished work, as well as on their ability to follow directions and meet a time limit.
Stifel earned the right to compete at Louisville by taking first place at the state competition last April. According to Lamitie, Stifel was the first female to win the state competition since electronic record-keeping began.
“This was a competition against all 17 trade schools in the state,” he said.
Lamitie’s Norwich Tech electrical shop has produced the first place winner at the state SkillsUSA every year for the past five years. Each of those students have gone on to place in the top four at the national event, he said.
“I feel this is an interesting stat, since our governor once stated that we are a failing system and wanted to shut us down,” he said.
Norwich Tech was just the ticket for Stifel’s learning style, she said.
“I was a hands-on learner when I decided to go to tech school,” she said.
Like all freshmen at the school, she did an exploratory semester getting a feel for all the various trades, and electrical was the last shop in her rotation. That’s where things really clicked for her.
“I just loved it so much. I had so much fun doing it,” she said. “We just did the most basic fundamentals at first, but clearly I’ve made my improvements.”
Stifel, the valedictorian for the Norwich Tech Class of 2016, has been awarded a scholarship to Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. The scholarship will cover $25,000 of her college costs each year of her bachelor’s degree, plus an additional year if she opts for the five-year master’s program.
She plans to study aeronautical engineering at RPI, and spent two weeks this summer studying calculus at the school’s Bridge Scholar program.
