ESP Supports State SkillsUSA Competition
At the end of March, 30 high school students from across Washington traveled to Clover Park Technical College to compete in the SkillsUSA Cyber Security Contest for Washington State. Each student having qualified in their respective regional competitions.
Founded in 1965 as the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, SkillsUSA is a leading Career and Technical Education (CTE) organization with over 400,000 members nationwide. Its contests span more than 100 career fields, from cabinetmaking and firefighting to nursing and cybersecurity, providing a platform for students to showcase their technical and professional skills at local, state, and national levels.
In the 2025 Cyber Security competition, sponsored by ESP with help from employees from Meta, Microsoft, and Securus, 15 teams of 2 students competed for 6 hours across 10 categories:
Professional Certification Exam (Security+)
Professional Activities (technical interview and technical proposal writing)
Network Systems Hardening (secure configuration of Windows and Linux systems and identifying/removing malware)
Router and Switch Security
Firewall Security
Scripting
Wireless Security
Digital & Network Forensics
Penetration Testing
Misc - a variety of web exploitation and LLM jailbreaking challenges
Challenges within these categories were designed to emphasize real-world practicality and interactivity, using tools such as Nmap, Wireshark, Autopsy, and the Sysinternals Suite, with real-time scoring in many challenges providing immediate feedback.
Iteratively built on feedback since 2019, the competition provided students with a highly competitive environment to learn on the fly and demonstrate the results of their studies in professional practice with the top team (https://www.instagram.com/p/DH6vTEkos2q/?img_index=1) now preparing to compete at the National Level (last year's winning team went on to place 3rd in the nation!) https://flic.kr/p/2q3LA3D
Alexander Ray, a network engineer at ESP, was fundamental in the success of the event. He dedicated many hours to creating 29 scenarios that challenged the students' abilities to manage real-world cyber security situations. He also judged and scored the competition.
Alexander believes this type of competition is an excellent opportunity for high schoolers. "I wish they had that kind of program when I was in school," he stated. The competition provides participants with the opportunity to travel and test their competency in skills essential to the modern workplace.
ESP sponsored prizes for the top two teams, including Yubikey security tokens and mini PCs for developing educational home labs.
For a recap video, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxtjXULd5j0.