HANOVER – What immediately comes to mind when you hear the words “gold medalists?”
If you’ve been among the millions of Americans tuned into the 16 days of Olympics coverage just concluded on Sunday, Aug. 11, you might naturally think of gymnast Simone Biles and swimmer Katie Ladecky and their contribution to the 40 gold medals among the 126 total medals won by U.S. athletes competing in Paris.
But Hanson’s Sofia Grasso and Rook Sulc of Rockland would argue that you should think of graphic design and visual communications. The two – Grasso graduated South Shore Tech in June, and Sulc will be a senior this fall – won gold medals in the annual SkillsUSA national competition in Atlanta this past spring.
“I really like the creative aspect of it,” Sulc said. “I get to express myself a lot more than in other areas. It’s such a big industry and we do so much because we don’t just do designing. “We also do print production, bindery and finishing – there’s just so much that it can go into. I’m going to probably go to college to get a bachelor’s degree … in graphic design and we’ll see where that takes me.”
Grasso, who starts a paramedic/EMT course at Quincy College in the fall as well as taking a CMTI course online right now, with an eye toward following her dad, Whitman Fire Lt. Nicholas Grasso’s, bootprints to a career as a firefighter, said she was initially drawn to the design program at SST because she had been a good artist.
“I learned and did really well,” she said, noting she was fascinated by screen printing and – at one point – started her own business with a friend, but divergent interests and the time consumed by their different coop jobs at SST, led them to set that aside, at least for now.
“It was so much fun,” she said.
Sulc got their foot in the SkillsUSA door as a freshman when a teacher asked if they were interested in the program.
That four-level competition had entrants in the design discipline designing a safety poster to present to a judging panel, winning second place in the state competition. There were more competitive levels open to them the following year.
Grasso competed in the screenprinting category. To compete, SkillsUSA entrants must take an exam in their shop, with high scorers advancing to district competition.
“Students could take one or more different knowledge tests to figure out which competition they would be practicing or participating in for this year’s district test,” she said.
With 60 different schools within the six districts, which each crown three winners, but only the top two move on to states.
“I did well in the graphic imaging sublimation (GIS) category, so I went to the districts,” they said. That meant another written test, pitting Sulc against the other 12 district schools competing with first and second-place entrants advancing to the state competition.
In the words of the late North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano, it was a “survive and advance – one game at a time,” he once said of his strategy for the 1983 NCAA tournament.
“It’s pretty scary,” Sulc said of those SkillsUSA exams. “It’s 100 questions and you can’t go back [and change an answer] because it’s on the computer.”
After waiting a couple of weeks, entrants receive their scores, knowing that only the top two scores meant a ticket to the states.
As for their category, graphic imaging sublimation seems complex, Sulc said, but it’s really not.
“It involves transferring printed images onto different products,” they said. “If you’ve ever seen a coffee mug with someone’s dog on it, you know what it is.”
District competitions are conducted at Blackstone Tech, but Sulc competed at Shawsheen Valley Tech in Lowell, where questions focused on OSHA requirements and SkillsUSA symbols and culture questions, but for states, they had to create two projects, including skills such as color separation, register printing and other technical skills.
“States are more difficult than nationals,” Grasso said. “My teachers and advisors got me where I am today.”
At nationals, one adds the pressure of filling up the World Congress Center in Atlanta with the most talented of your peers from vocational schools across the country. There is some downtime for students to see some of Atlanta during the competition week, Sulc said.
But for Grasso, much of that free time was devoted to preparing for the business of the competition.
“At times, it was stressful,” she remembered. “I’d feel like I messed up [on a test], but I kept my head high and believed in myself. … I knew that, if I wanted to get first, I had to work for it.”
Still, the week offered some fun when the competition was over.
“We had so much fun,” she said. “There were so many things to do.”
Besides everything going on at the WCC there was a festival happening that week, as well.
“We didn’t get to head to it, because we were so tired,” Grasso said of the competition which included an employability test as well as a screen printing technology orientation and a written knowledge test.
“It was different at the states than at the nationals,” Sulc said. “It was different products and we had to do different tasks. At states, it’s one day – over four hours. You get everything all at once and you do all of the tasks. At nationals, it’s spread over a few days and you’re given a time slot.”
Competing students had to get through six or seven stations, taking them from the creation of a digital design, printing it on a pair of socks, and transfer three other designs onto a wooden panel, a bag and a coffee mug.
That was followed up with a quality control problem.
Another challenge for Grasso, who uses an automatic press at her co-op job, was the work involved in every part of the printing process, including the muscle strength involved.
“They gave us a bunch of products that had minor defects and we had to find the defects and tell them whether it was something we could sell,” Sulc said. “It was kind of tricky because there were some without any defects and there were some where it depended on how you could see it.”
“Basically, that’s what I do, now,” Grasso said with a laugh. “Ever since I’ve been in the shop, I correct everything.”
The opinion-based nature of that distinction made it challenging, Sulc said. That was followed up by a mock job interview.
Between classwork and the experience of the nationals exercises, Sulc said they are more apt to notice small details in products as a consumer.
“It’s usually small little things that no one else will see,” they said, noting that she noticed a tape mark on one of their projects, but judges missed it.
At the conclusion of the competition, everyone’s work was displayed, giving students a chance to see how well their competition performed.
“I thought that everyone did so well,” they said. “Last year, when I won fourth, it didn’t seem as close.”
There are also design competitions at nationals in photography, graphic communications and advertising design within the Design and Visual Communications umbrella.
“It’s such an amazing experience, even if you don’t medal at all,” Sulc said. “You get to meet people from across the state and the country.”
SST’s focus on professionalism, not only in their shops, where they often produce materials for member towns, but there are job interview projects in English classes.