Three students from Oregon share their SkillsUSA experiences and stories.
This year, Lauren White, editor of The Coffee Shops™, had the opportunity to attend the 2026 Oregon SkillsUSA state competition. SkillsUSA competitions are fundamental and valuable opportunities for supporting the next generation of tradespeople as they grow their skillsets and understandings of their chosen trades. Seeing leading professional organizations, like the National Roofing Contractors Association, getting involved is also exciting, as having such support from industry leaders for these future tradespeople gives many confidence in what’s to come.
This year, Oregon’s state competition was held over the course of two days in April (4/10/26 and 4/11/26) at the Knife River Training Facility in Albany. While there, Lauren talked to three of the students competing: Akshara Dashputre, Theron Tyler and Gayathri Devarapu. Both Akshara and Gayathri are sophomores at the Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering. As for Theron, he’s a senior at Henley High School and is heading to the Oregon Institute of Technology with plans to study mechanical engineering this fall.
At this year’s competition, Gayathri competed in three events: related technical math, cake decorating and prepared speech. She shared her thoughts about the experience, saying, “Technical math was probably my best event this year because I got to take the test online at school two or three weeks ago. For the other two, they were both at 9 a.m. this morning. So, I had to rush around a bit, but it was really fun.”…