Seven students from Carbon Career & Technical Institute attended the 49th National Skills USA Competition in Kansas City, Missouri.

One of the CCTI teams, the Career Pathways: Arts and Communications team placed third in the nation.The seven students who attended the national competition spoke with CCTI's Joint Operating Committee (JOC) regarding their projects and their experiences.Skills USA, formerly known as VICA, is an organization designed to promote leadership, teamwork, and motivational skills in high school student's respective technical areas.The students had previously competed in April at the PA State level competition in Hershey. These seven students placed 1st at the state level, which gave them the opportunity to compete nationally in Kansas City.CCTI's National Competition Bronze Place medalists are a team consisting of Steven Rodriguez of Lehighton, Kim Pimble of Panther Valley, and Katie Pickrell of Palmerton.They competed in Career Pathways: Arts and Communication. These students helped to create school photo packages and yearbooks in-house.The student's project featured the steps of this experience by having a display of photo package order forms, student photos, a video showing the design layout of the yearbook, business partnership, and old and current yearbooks.CCTI students, Joshua Covell of Panther Valley, Cody Fischer and John Pieri both of Jim Thorpe, and Derek Koch of Lehighton participated as a team in the Entrepreneurship competition.They created a business plan incorporating the procedures necessary to design and market a new product. Their product is called DAAC, which stands for the Distance Authentication Alarm Circlet. It is an application for your phone that alerts the owner if their loved one, pet, or merchandise gets too far away from them.At the competition there were over 6,000 competitors from all 50 states. There were also competitors from Guam, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands. There were over 100 events for the competitors to compete in. The last time CCTI attended the National Competition was in 2009.CCTI's Skills USA advisors are Michele Klock, Kevin Kuehner, and Lisa Walck.