(HARLINGEN, Texas) – An all-female team of students from Texas State Technical College’s Harlingen campus earned silver medals in a building construction skills competition at the SkillsUSA Texas Postsecondary Leadership and Skills Conference held April 2-5.
TSTC students Michelle Martinez, Pamela Perez, Esmeralda Reyes and Diana Zuniga competed in the TeamWorks event at SkillsUSA Texas as “Team 11.”
“I think women can do anything,” Zuniga said. “I don’t have experience, but I wanted to compete to get the experience and participate. My teacher, Mr. Martinez, said we had to be a group of four, so I looked for other women.”
Bobby Horner, of Waco, has been judging TeamWorks events for SkillsUSA for about eight years. He said he had wondered if he would ever see an all-female team compete.
“Other judges said they had seen all-female teams compete at the high school level, but no one could remember seeing it at the college level,” Horner said. “This was a first for me. I was really excited about that.”
Alfredo Martinez, a TSTC Building Construction Technology instructor, was the team’s advisor. He said the women are pursuing Associate of Applied Science degrees in Building Construction Technology at TSTC and they worked hard to prepare for the competition.
“Two students are only in their first semester,” he said. “The other two are only in their second. They had to do their part by being there for each other, attending practices and learning.”
Reyes takes night classes in addition to working full time as an instructional assistant for the Dental Hygiene program at TSTC’s Harlingen campus. She said when Zuniga asked her to compete, she did not hesitate.
“We practiced every Friday, and that helped a lot,” Reyes said. “We didn’t really know each other’s personalities before we did this.”
Reyes said being the only all-female team competing got the women some attention from others at the event.
“The guys next to us were checking out what we were doing,” Reyes said. “But we kept focusing.”
Michelle Martinez said staying focused and the adage of “measure twice, cut once” ensured the team’s success.
“It was a lot harder because we only got a certain amount of wood,” she said. “We couldn’t stretch it if it was off.”
Perez said experience with her family flipping houses and regularly double-checking a classmate’s work prepared her for the challenge with the team.
“We all checked the measurements a few times before making a cut,” Perez said. “ I have a classmate that I double check his measurements all of the time because he doesn’t measure.”
Alfredo Martinez said the team surpassed his expectations.
“I think they did amazing,” he said. “It blew my mind as far as what they were able to accomplish because they did things they weren’t even taught yet.”
The team members said they plan to try for gold next year.
“At the end, it felt like a good time,” Michelle Martinez said. “Someone told us, ‘The average person can’t build what we built,’ and that made me feel better.”
SkillsUSA is a professional organization focused on employability, leadership and technical skills that help college students pursue successful careers and be part of a skilled workforce. SkillsUSA has more than 100 contests at the state and national events in which students can compete, including 3D Visualization and Animation, Electrical Construction Wiring, and Welding.
Students earning gold medals at the state level are qualified to participate in the 2025 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference to be held June 23-27 in Atlanta, Georgia.
For more information on SkillsUSA Texas, go to skillsusatx.org.
To learn more about TSTC, visit tstc.edu.
