PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Ron Downing has membership merit

Ron Downing and SkillsUSA belong to a mutual admiration society.

“SkillsUSA has done so much for our students that I can’t say enough about it,” Downing said.

And, when Kansas SkillsUSA gathered in Wichita earlier this year, the group honored the Pittsburg State University automotive technology associate professor with a hand-crafted trophy and an honorary life membership in the organization.

Making the moment even more memorable for him, Downing was surrounded by former PSU national SkillsUSA officers Jack Frederick and Case Clough, as well as Jacob Ellis, a national medal winner and an officer in the local chapter.

“I was very honored to stand on stage with these young men that took our local chapter to a new level,” Downing said.

He is tremendously proud of the accomplishments of his students, and believes that SkillsUSA, a career and technical organization with more than 300,000 members, has contributed to their success.

“One thing we like about getting students involved in SkillsUSA, it gave them an opportunity to study hard and prepare all year long,” Downing said. “State competitions are held in the spring, and students had a chance to compete there and go on to nationals. I’d call meetings and get people involved, and I always emphasized preparation, study and practice, as much as possible.”

In fact, the process may be just as important, if not more so, than the competition.

“The whole key is, it’s not if you win or you don’t win, it’s what you’ve learned in the journey to get there,” Downing said. “If it pushes you a little harder, then you become a much more productive citizen in the industry. Winning a medal is the icing on the cake.”

He has been involved in the auto industry most of his life.

“I started when I was 9 years old, working for my father in the shop,” Downing said.

Born and raised in Pittsburg, he is a 1965 Pittsburg High School graduate and received a bachelor of science from PSU in 1970. He earned his master’s from PSU in 1999.

“I started teaching in Missouri in 1972, and the next year I got involved with SkillsUSA,” Downing said.

He taught at the Lamar, Mo., Area Technical School for 24 years and advised the SkillsUSA chapter.

“I taught mainly high school, some post-secondary and college-level students, and some small groups came in on the GI Bill,” Downing said. “That worked out very well, and I always liked having older students in my classes.”

And he liked getting students into SkillsUSA, because it could teach them things they couldn’t get in class.

“I can teach the automotive skills, but what I can’t teach is the maturity level,” Downing said. “That they get from going out and doing public speaking, developing leadership skills. They learn how to go out and interview for jobs, how to get along with others, good people skills.”

During his time in Lamar, his students won four gold, three silver and one bronze medal in national automotive service technology competition between 1983 and 1996.
In 1996 he came to  PSU, first teaching in its two-year program and later going on to teach in the four-year program.

One of the first things Downing did at PSU was re-start the  SkillsUSA chapter, and from 1997 through 2002, PSU automotive students won three gold and three silver national medals in the college division.

In 2002, PSU stepped away from the competition to take over management of the state automotive competition.

“We stepped up as a faculty from 2003 until the past year,” Downing said. “During that time, I either chaired or co-chaired the Kansas state contest. I’ve stepped away because I’m getting ready to retire before too long.”

He is proud that Jack Frederick, one of his former students and national SkillsUSA officers, has now taken over chairing the state contest.

In July 2001, Downing stepped beyond national boundaries when he accepted an invitation to serve as World Skills expert for automotive technology. This involved working with the students chosen to represent the United States in the international competition and then accompanying them to the event.

“We had eight weeks to get ready,” Downing said. “We brought the student, Joshua Boschee, to PSU and worked with him for two weeks.”

Because the competition was being held in Korea and most of the vehicles involved would be produced by Hundai, Boschee also trained at the Hundai Center in Chicago.

“We ran 12- to 14-hour days,” Downing said.

It was challenging, but the challenges were only beginning.

“We were in Seoul, South Korea, when I got a call that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers,” Downing said. “Several of the other world experts and I had a talk, and we met with the seven members of the U.S. team. They voted, as a team, to compete.”

When the American team marched in during the opening parade of nations, it received a standing ovation. Boschee went on to win a silver medal  in the competition, as well as a gold best of nation medal.

PSU graduates Rusty Brown and Frederick went on to also win silver medals and best of nation awards in 2003 and 2009.

Downing will also step away from the  role of world auto technology expert, but plans to continue with an auto skills competition sponsored by Ford for high school students only.

“I took over six or seven years ago as state competition manager for Kansas,” he said. “This is a very rich contest, very lucrative with scholarships for students. When I was teaching in Missouri I won that competition 12 times, 10  years in a row. In 1994 my team won the Ford national competition. I’ll stay as manager of this as long as I can.”

He looks back with great satisfaction on his association with SkillsUSA and his teaching career.

“I’ve been blessed with the people I’ve worked with,” he said. “It’s not about me, it’s how we help the students. I have considered it a privilege to serve my school, my state and my country.”