July 13, 2020

SkillsUSA Minnesota is thrilled to be represented on the national stage with our first national high school officer in nearly 40 years! Cecelia Lausten, our High School State President, was recently selected as one of the national officers for the 2020-21 school year. Cece has participated in SkillsUSA throughout her high school career at Sebeka High School, winning multiple awards at competition and offering her leadership as a state officer during her sophomore and junior years of high school. We could not be prouder of her accomplishment in earning a national officer position for the upcoming school year!

Cece has a big year ahead of her including the opportunity to help engage our national members in new and inventive ways as our country continues to navigate change.  Thank you to Cece and her advisor, Tom Smith for their dedication to SkillsUSA! Cece’s thoughts regarding the experience may be found below.

“All my life I have prided myself on the ability to not be nervous for anything. However, those few seconds before my name was announced for the 2020 SkillsUSA National Officer Team, were the most nerve wracking moments of my life. All my hard work leading up to that moment, the speeches, the 50 hour career essentials class, the essays, were all about to be worth it.

These last couple months of my life have been crazy while I prepared for my biggest challenge yet and it’s only going to become more challenging now that I have made it into office. Even so, I’m so ready to serve my Nation as an officer and represent Minnesota on a National level. I have big plans for SkillsUSA and I have never been more proud to be a part of something bigger than myself.

I have so much to look forward to this following year, including traveling to some amazing places, rocking some awesome Skills merch, and getting random boxes of snacks and goodies from our team managers. It’s going to be amazing and I hope you all are ready, because I am.

Lastly, I’d like to thank everyone who helped me on this amazing journey and who believed in me. It means the world to me and I couldn’t ask to be from a better state.”

Cecelia Lausten
Sebeka Public Schools
National Officer At-Large