Press Release For immediate release
Contact:
Carolyn McGary
(303) 656-8353
facilithon@gmail.com
Denver, Colorado
The Facilithon program, FM Pipeline Team’s high school springboard competition in facility management (FM), successfully ran the first-ever industry-sponsored state high school SkillsUSA competition in the United States Wednesday June 17th as the SkillsUSA CA Facilithon-online.
Clay Mitchell, SkillsUSA CA state director shared “On behalf of 43 thousand plus students in SkillsUSA CA, I would like to congratulate the students who participated in this Facilithon virtual event… it really shows the ability for our individuals to think on their feet, find problems and solve them. I want to thank the FM Pipeline Team for bringing this to our students in California.”
Due to the online nature of the event, over 50 FM professionals from all around the world volunteered to judge, spreading the Facilithon message event further. The judges loved their experience, noting the team’s management of said made their experience “as close to really there” as one judge put it.
SkillsUSA California held an official state awards gala with the Facilithon participants, funders, judges and VIPs. Competition winners included Bronze- Derek Thach- Silicon Valley Technical Education High School- San Jose, CA Silver- Ernesto Zuniga, Victor Valley High School – Victorville, CA and Gold went to Layali Homod- Academies of the Antelope Valley – Lancaster, CA.
Awards gala presenters included Telva McGruder, director at GM; Lindsey Brackett, principal at legacy FM and Heba Kamal, Egyptian country head of Enova by Veolia, who pledged to bring The Facilithon to Cairo and the middle east. Sharon Harrington, FM Pipeline Team board secretary, won the inaugural volunteer “Facilitator” award for her role in coordinating the California initiative.
The Facilithon is a state-level FM competition in SkillsUSA, the nation’s fastest-growing career-technical student association. SkillsUSA students sharpen their career and job skills through mentoring and competitions to be job-ready, day one. Facilithon industry partners enjoy engaging their future facility management employees well in advance of post-secondary decisions. Since inception in 2015, Facilithon programs have engaged over 300 competitors, granted 39 scholarships and over 8,500 SkillsUSA students know what FM is via The Facilithon’s “1 in 30” program.
To become a Facilithon industry, college or chapter partner, contact FM Pipeline Team, Inc. (501(c)(3) at 612-426-7227, facilithon@gmail.com or go to www.fmpipipeline.org to learn more.