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Portrait of Diego Rivera-Holguin

How SkillsUSA Helps This Student Tap into His Competitive Side

Diego Rivera-Holguin is studying Electrical Trades at CNM and is excited to put his skills to the test at this year’s SkillsUSA New Mexico State Leadership and Skills Conference
March 18, 2025

Diego Rivera-Holguin loves to compete.

It’s his competitive drive that allowed him to play college baseball, and it’s also what’s pushed him to represent CNM in the state-level SkillsUSA Electrical Construction Wiring competition.

“When we held our in-house CNM competition, I was so excited to utilize my athlete’s mindset again,” Diego says. “I brought the same attitude that I used on the baseball field to the electrical lab, and it’s helped me stay calm and qualify for the state competition.”

Diego originally played baseball and studied orthodontics at a small college in West Virginia. But he quickly realized orthodontics wasn’t for him, so he came back to New Mexico to figure out his next steps.

In the fall of 2023 Diego enrolled at CNM and after exploring program options, he found his place in the Electrical Trades program. The program covers a wide range of topics, including traditional electrical concepts, photovoltaics (solar panels), and programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which are used to control automated machines. Diego Rivera-Holguin working on a breaker box

“I wanted to do something where I could learn in a hands-on environment,” Diego says. “The electrical program gave me that option, and I was able to jump right in, even without any previous experience.”

Since qualifying for the state SkillsUSA competition earlier this spring, Diego has been diligently practicing his skills and studying with his classmates. Competitors in the Electrical Construction Wiring category will complete a written test, a conduit bending exercise, and a hands-on installation of a conduit system, cabling system, and wiring devices from a provided specification sheet.

Ultimately, Diego hopes to the qualify for the national SkillsUSA competition in Atlanta, GA this June.

“I’m a little more nervous because I’ll be competing against so many other people, including my own classmates, but I’m also really excited to have the chance to compete at the national level,” he says “My goal is to go to Atlanta and place in the top ten to show that CNM and New Mexico are on the map for trades education.”