Colonie Central High School senior Seamus McWatters brought home a bronze medal after last week's New York State SkillsUSA competition in Syracuse, NY. 

McWatters is a Automotive Collision Technology student through Capital Region BOCES. Already a standout in his class, McWatters took part in the SkillsUSA competition at the NYS Fairgrounds on April 22-24. SkillsUSA is a career and technical student organization serving more than 395,000 high school and college students. The organization promotes personal and professional growth and offers students the opportunity to compete at the local, regional, state and national levels. 

This time, he brought home a bronze medal, but previously McWatters won the regional Auto Refinishing Competition in March in Albany.

The senior has said before that this program allows him to pursue his passion of working with his hands. 

“We do hands-on work at BOCES which helps me significantly more than if I am just sitting in a classroom with a packet of papers. For me, I have to do something to learn it,” McWatters said. 

McWatters is one of 33 students enrolled in the program this year. Students in the Automotive Collision Technology program learn everything from how to repair, restore and customize cars and trucks to how to mix specific colors and paint vehicles, detail vehicles and calculate finishing costs.