Automotive Students Shine During SkillsUSA Competition

Nurturing one’s skill set takes dedication and practice. But encouragement can also go a long way, especially for those just starting out.

That’s one of the many reasons why the annual SkillUSA New Jersey State Competition is so important to Garden State automotive students. Every spring, students studying collision repair or automotive service and/or automotive maintenance at vocational and technical schools take part in this annual competition which provides a supportive environment in which to showcase their talents.

The collision repair competition took place at the Somerset County Vocational and Technical School on March 22. Congratulations to first place winner Christian Bodon (Mercer County Technical School; Trenton).

Kudos also goes to second place winner Matheus Rompava (Elizabeth High School) and third place winner Lucas Kumpel Santos (Elizabeth High School).

Event organizer Charity Ritter (Bridgewater Collision Repair) expressed her gratitude to all those who took part in the competition helping to make this event possible.

Special thanks go to those who took time out of their busy schedules to judge the competition: Abigail Heim (Bridgewater Collision), Tyler Tallamy (A&G Customs), Peter Ritter (Bridgewater Collision), David Gutierrez (Morristown AutoBody) and Mitchelle DeRosa (NCS).

Ritter also expressed her thanks to the following organizations for donating items for the competition. Bridgewater Collision provided a toolbox, tools and bags for each contestant. All supplies were donated by Central Paint. Empire provided fenders, and AASP/NJ, NCS Fairfield and Shamrock Sales donated tools for the competition.

On the mechanical side, Automotive Service Competitions were held on March 26 at the Mercedes Benz National Training and Performance Center – Northeast (Robbinsville). Special thanks to secondary competition and career fair sponsors Benzel Busch, the Community College of Philadelphia, Ford Lincoln Automotive Student Service Education Training, Hyundai, MBDrive, Megatech, Milwaukee, Ray Catena, Toyota Lexus Technician Training and Education Network and Universal Technical Institute (UTI). For more information and a full list of competition winners, visit nj-skillsusa.org.

Want more? Check out the May 2026 issue of New Jersey Automotive!