(HARLINGEN, Texas) – Texas State Technical College’s Emergency Medical Services program continued its winning streak at the SkillsUSA Texas Postsecondary Leadership and Skills Conference held in early April in Corpus Christi, with students from the Harlingen campus sweeping the top three spots in the EMT competition.
Joseph Amaro and Liana Rios earned the gold medal in the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) contest, qualifying for the 2026 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference scheduled for June 1-5 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Giselle Garcia and Maria Ortiz earned the silver medal, while Josiah Flores and Rey Martinez took home the bronze.
“We train our students consistently to replicate the pace and unpredictability of the industry so they can be immediately effective on the job,” said Luis Martinez, the SkillsUSA coordinator for the Harlingen campus EMS program.
TSTC’s EMS program has won the gold medal in this event for three consecutive years. In 2025, the top honors went to Kelly Coontz and Elizabeth Hammons, following a 2024 gold-medal performance by Josh Rains and Hunter Spohn. Those four students represented the Abilene campus.
Rios credited her performance to the hands-on training provided in the TSTC lab and during clinical rotations.
“Having been in real patient-care scenarios helped us stay calm under pressure,” she said.
The current gold-medal duo aims to follow in the footsteps of David Aman and Spohn, who won the national championship in 2024. Aman, who earned a state bronze medal in 2024 with partner Tristian Potter, had stepped in for Rains during the national event.
“Winning made us feel that going through the classes and the skills we have been taught was rewarding,” Hammons said of her 2025 state victory. “Winning for the second straight year makes us proud.”
The program’s success extends back several years. In 2022, Destiny Roberts, who represented the Brownwood campus, earned a silver medal in First Aid-CPR at the state level before stepping in for a national competitor to earn a bronze medal at the national event.
“Competing in SkillsUSA gave me a lot of confidence in myself,” Roberts said. “I was not sure I wanted to compete at the state event, but once I got there, I knew it was the right decision.”
Ashley Sims, director of alignment for TSTC’s EMS program, said the consistent medal count demonstrates the program’s value to the Texas workforce.
“The EMS program has a reputation in our community for being rigorous, with high standards, and our outcomes reflect that,” Sims said.
SkillsUSA is a professional organization focused on employability, leadership, and technical skills that help college students pursue successful careers. The organization hosts more than 100 specific contests at the state and national levels, ranging from 3D visualization and animation to welding sculpture.
Registration for the summer and fall semesters is now underway at TSTC. For more information, visit TSTC.edu.