Three Sheridan students win medals at 2025 Skills Ontario Competition

Three Sheridan students won medals at this week's Skills Ontario Competition, an annual event that showcases the province's top skilled trades and technologies students.

Welding and Fabrication Technician student Lucas Blackwood claimed a silver medal for the second straight year, while Christian Hills (Industrial Mechanic Millwright - Apprenticeship) and Cam Tebbutt (Honours Bachelor of Photography) earned bronze.

The Skills Ontario Competition is Canada's largest skilled trades and technology conference, providing opportunity for thousands of high school and postsecondary students to demonstrate their abilities in the industrial, technology, construction, motive power and service sectors. This year's Skills Ontario Competition took place at the Toronto Congress Centre over three days, beginning Monday (May 5).

A total of 31 students represented Sheridan at Skills Ontario, also competing in Architectural Technology and Design; Cloud Computing; CNC Machining; Cybersecurity; Electrical Installations; IT Network Systems Administration; IT Office Software Applications; Mechanical CAD; Mechatronics; Metal Fabricator - Fitter; Plumbing; Precision Machining; and Web Design and Development.

“Participation in Skills Ontario showcases how our students have developed within their profession, displaying not only their potential but also their resilience, focus and professionalism,” said Dr. Elizabeth Fabbroni, Dean of Sheridan’s Faculty of Applied Science and Technology. “While we celebrate our medalists, all Bruins who took on these challenges are winners, and their collective talent elevates their trades and our community. We’re also immensely grateful to mentors and staff members who shared their time and talent to prepare our students for their competitions.”

Learn more about Sheridan's three Skills Ontario medalists below:

Lucas Blackwood (Welding)

After surprising himself with a silver-medal showing at last year's Skills Ontario Competition, Blackwood went into this year's event expecting another podium performance.

"I'm happy with how I did," said Blackwood, who will graduate from Sheridan next month. "The challenges this year (creating structures out of mild steel, stainless steel and aluminum) were a bit more complex with more difficult joints, but the experience I gained last year and from the welding jobs I've had over the past two summers helped a lot."

Blackwood, whose first exposure to welding came as a high school student through the Dual Credit program, also credited Sheridan welding coordinator Paul Gobbi for helping him prepare for Skills Ontario.

Christian Hills (Industrial Mechanic Millwright)

Hills, who is currently in Level 3 of Sheridan's Industrial Mechanic Millwright apprenticeship program, also came into the Skills Ontario Competition with high hopes.

"I definitely felt I'd make the top three. I did a lot of preparation, including working with a representative from the company that makes the alignment tools and fixture lasers we'd use at Skills Ontario," he said.

Hills is the second Sheridan student to earn a medal in Industrial Mechanic Millwrighting in as many years, following Hardeep Bansal's silver-medal showing last year. Sheridan students also won gold and bronze in IMM in 2019.

"My professor Stephen Jay gave up a lot of his own time to work with me," Hills said. "I'm now looking forward to finishing my apprenticeship starting to work in the field, which hopefully will involve a bit of traveling. I love the problem-solving aspect to this career and it's such a vast trade."

Cam Tebbutt (Photography)

When Tebbutt started studying photography at Sheridan two years ago, he was surprised by the amount of lighting, equipment and general knowledge needed to shoot photos in a studio environment.

The studio experience he's gained as a Bruin paid off in the Skills Ontario Competition, which tasked students with photographing a can of product. "We only had 20 minutes to complete the task, including putting together the lights setup," he said. "Even though I didn't have time to perfect things the way I wanted to, it worked out well."

Tebbutt, the third Sheridan photography student since 2019 to win a Skills Ontario medal, is a former software engineering university student who pivoted to photography as an opportunity to work in fashion.

"I love taking photos, and that's my main thing right now, but directing is cool as well. I may look to do more video work in the future," he said. "Participating in events like the Skills Ontario Competition helps me feel more comfortable with the camera and working within a time crunch."

Sheridan students have a long history of success at Skills Ontario and other skilled trades competitions. In 2022, Internet Communications Technology student Akshit Vineet won national gold in Cloud Computing at the Skills Canada championships in Vancouver. Later that year, Sheridan hosted the Industrial Mechanics event of the 2022 WorldSkills Competition Special Edition, marking just the third time that a discipline in WorldSkills was contested on Canadian soil.