WorldSkills National Medalist

Long before I managed engineers, I competed against them. My WorldSkills story runs from a teenage Medallion for Excellence in IT Software Applications (2007) to a national Silver Medal in IT Software Solutions for Business (2010), with two selections to the national team training camps, for WorldSkills Calgary 2009 and WorldSkills London 2011.

What WorldSkills is

WorldSkills is the world's largest vocational skills competition, often called the "skills olympics." Every two years, national champions in dozens of disciplines compete internationally; getting anywhere near the national team means surviving rounds of timed, judged, real-world software challenges.

The arc: competitor to coach

The medals taught me to build under pressure: complete, working software against the clock, judged on details most users never see. But the part of the story I'm proudest of came after: from 2010 to 2015 I switched to the other side of the table as a WorldSkills expert and trainer, coaching the next generation of competitors. Several of them went on to win medals of their own.

That switch, from winning to helping others win, quietly became the pattern of my whole career: competitor to coach, engineer to mentor, builder to team leader.

What it means to me

Competition taught me speed; coaching taught me patience. Twenty years later I still use both, usually in the same week.