Snohomish County high school students showcase their construction skills

Published 2:28 pm Friday, May 1, 2026

MARYSVILLE — Students from around Snohomish County put their construction skills on display during a showcase Thursday at Marysville Pilchuck High School.

The Regional Apprenticeship Pathways Spring Showcase had almost 75 attendees, including elected officials from around the county and state, trade workers and other members of the public. The RAP program is the only state-recognized construction trades pre-apprenticeship school serving high school juniors, seniors and Everett Community College students.

On Thursday, the program’s students showed off what they learned throughout the year. Metal sculptures, training stations, rusty trailers and machines worth thousands of dollars were all on display.

Max Croker and Ruben Obispo, both seniors at Jackson High School in Mill Creek, showed off a CNC router that uses digital designs to precisely carve wood, plastic, metal and other materials.

It can intricately remove material up to 0.026 inches, Croker said.

“Real world, we’re making parts for larger machines using this,” Obispo said.

Croker is considering a career working on machines used in making hydroelectricity, she said. A CNC machine would be used to create parts for the “giant turbines” in those facilities, Croker said.

“They need to work so precisely that machining and repairing parts has to be done so exact,” she said.

Once graduated, Obispo is going to Bellingham Technical College and will try to join an electrical union, he said.

Croker wants to get an electrical apprenticeship, possibly through the Snohomish County Public Utilities District, she said.

During the showcase, State Superintendent Chris Reykdal received the RAP Champion Award, acknowledging his support for the program.

“To students,” he said during his acceptance speech, “you are doing something that matters in the world.”

“Algorithms are going to do a lot of what we thought people were needed to do but there’s a class of work out there that we call the untouchables. There’s no AI that’s getting on a roof to fix it. There’s no AI that’s going to wire a house,” Reykdal said. “This is the stuff that makes America, quite frankly, go.”

Alternative learning programs are important because learning is not a “one size fits all,” Reykdal said in an interview. “The economy is kind of demanding kids to have something more than high school, but only 30-40% of them will need a bachelor’s degree, right? That leaves 60% of our kids who need something like this that’s going to be, you know, family wage jobs.”

As for receiving the award?

“It’s really nice, but it’s really about everyone at the local level,” Reykdal said. “Being a kid who grew up, family in the trades, this is everything to me.”

Other speakers included RAP students and Snohomish County Council member Nate Nehring.

“Our school districts throughout the state, throughout the country, do a really good job of preparing students for four-year university,” Nehring said, “and that’s a great option for a lot of students, but I think historically nationwide, we’ve really lacked in preparing students for other alternative pathways to successful careers, including the trades. That’s why it’s so special to have a program like this right here in Snohomish County.”

Arlington High School junior Tyson Williams also spoke.

“Through RAP, I’ve gained a lot of valuable construction skills and hands-on experience,” he said. “Thankfully, I’ve only shocked myself with how much I’ve learned.”

After graduation, Williams plans to join a union electrical apprenticeship, he said.

“It’s the mental challenge that comes with it,” he said in an interview. “And both my parents are electricians, so they kind of pushed me into it. And I have a close connection with the trade, so I’ve always kind of been interested.”

Also on display was a metal rack, designed to hold lumber and other construction materials, that stood over 10 feet tall. Marysville Pilchuck High School senior Emony Villa-Johnson and Everett High School junior Liam Crisler built it.

Along with metalworking and laboring, the project was an opportunity to work with concrete, Villa-Johnson said in an interview.

“It also gave me a lot of experience with the masonry, which I kind of lacked in the beginning of the year,” he said. “I told my teacher that, he’s like, ‘Why don’t you go ahead and do this project right here?’”

He enjoyed the process so much and hopes to do more in the future, Villa-Johnson said.

“This is something I can think about and tell my kids that I built something that’s going to be here for years, for other kids to kind of progress throughout their life too,” he said.

Crisler enjoyed the carpentry, he said, but the program’s community left the biggest impact.

“Everybody wants to help each other out and make each other better,” Crisler said.

Crisler is looking forward to learning more about electrical work in his second year in the program and wants to work on power lines after graduation, he said.

Villa-Johnson is going to Vanguard University in California for physics engineering, he said. He wants to be a civil engineer.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay