For months, Mikala Sposito imagined a single moment in time.
The Washtenaw Community College student pictured the stage, the announcement, the realization that years of grinding in a welding booth had finally paid off. She replayed it in her head during quiet commutes, through noisy training sessions, during holidays spent not with friends or family, but with a torch in her hand.
Then it happened.
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“It was insane and I couldn’t believe it. … that’s the moment that I was thinking about constantly on my drives to school and every single day of training," Sposito said. "I thought about that moment exactly, that awards ceremony where they called my name for first place, and I was finally living what I was visualizing this whole time."
That moment — winning the USA Weld Trials in Huntsville, Alabama — earned the 21-year-old Dexter resident SkillsUSA's one and only spot representing the United States at the 48th WorldSkills Competition this September in Shanghai, China.
It also made history, marking the first time a female welder has earned that spot.
But Sposito didn’t get there by focusing on history or gender. She got there by focusing on the work.
Repetition and sacrifice
Long before she stood atop the podium, Sposito built her path over thousands of hours of training.
“To be a welding competitor, you just have to want it more than anything ever,” she said. “You have to be hungry for it and I was very hungry for it.”
That hunger translated into a training schedule that steadily intensified since winning a SkillsUSA state championship in 2024. From 50 hours a week to 60, then 70, and eventually 80-hour weeks sustained for
months leading up to the Weld Trials.
“I couldn’t go out with my friends every time I wanted to – they would ask me to hang out, I had to say no because I was welding," Sposito said. "I was in there on my birthday, I was in there Christmas Eve, I was welding at home on Christmas Day, I was welding New Years Eve. I did it all.
"I had to forgo a typical 21-year-old life to sit in this sweaty shop for 80 hours a week just to work on this goal that I accomplished, so it feels amazing.”
That level of commitment is not unusual for competitors at the highest level, said WCC welding instructor Alex Pazkowski, who won a silver medal at the 2013 WorldSkills.
“It’s the biggest commitment that you’re going to make in your life other than having a child,” Pazkowski said. “You have to really go for it. If you don’t go 110% the whole time, there’s no reason to do it at all. If you’re not going to work that hard, somebody else is going to work that hard. It’s going to cancel out everything that you did.”
A mindset that separates
Sposito said the difference between good and great competitors often comes down to mindset.
“You can have the talent and not show up and treat it as not a big deal … but then you’re not getting any better,” she said.
That approach carried her through one of the toughest fields in the country, including
a top competitor who had narrowly missed qualifying the year before.
“I knew going in that he was going to be tough competition because he’s already done this whole process before and he basically went as far as you can go without making it to WorldSkills,” she said. “I just kept that in mind and realized that if I work 10 times harder, I can beat him. My coach, Alex Pazkowski, always told me that hard work beats talent all the time.”
Pazkowski sees that mentality as the defining trait of elite competitors.
“You have to be humble. You have to be coachable. And I think the thing that sets our welding competitors apart is grit,” he said. “This is a long road and you spend a lot of time in that booth. … But you have to power through that and you’ve got to figure it out.”
More than a milestone
Sposito’s victory also extends Washtenaw Community College’s legacy in producing elite welders. She is the sixth WCC student to qualify for WorldSkills — more than any other institution in the United States.
Three former competitors — Pazkowski (2013), Brad Clink (2011) and Glenn Kay (1997)
— now teach in the college's Welding & Fabrication department, creating a pipeline of experience that helped shape Sposito’s journey.
Another WCC instructor, Amanda Scheffler, was the first female to reach the Pre-Trials in 2002. Sposito was the next in March.
“It has benefited me greatly. I have such a family here,” Sposito said. “Not only do I have the best welders in the country, I have the best people in the country too.”
Her path to that environment began early. At age 10, she attended Maker Faire at The Henry Ford museum and became captivated by a virtual welding exhibit.
“I thought it was the coolest thing ever and I never let go of it," Sposito said. "I just latched onto it. … they had no idea how to support me in what they thought was just a phase, but turned out not to be a phase.”
Ironically, Pazkowski was part of the team that built that exact virtual welding exhibit shortly after his own WorldSkills experience.
Who's the best welder?
While her accomplishment carries historic significance, Sposito keeps her focus elsewhere.
“The types of questions I get are very different than if it were a man going through,” she said. “I don’t view this competition as me being a woman going through this. There’s no score criteria that says ‘Is she a woman?’ or ‘Is he a man?’ It’s who’s the best welder.”
Pazkowski reinforced that perspective from the start.
“I told her at the very beginning of this, ‘Your story is going to be a big deal. And I don’t want you to be remembered as being the first female to ever do this, I want you to be remembered to as the best welder that’s ever done this,’” he said.
Sposito’s victory at the USA Weld Trials also earned her a $60,000 scholarship from the American Welding Society and Miller Electric, along with an additional $5,000 award. With those winnings, Sposito plans to transfer to Wayne State University to pursue a welding engineering bachelor's degree.
She has since embarked on an intensive seven-month training schedule, including international competitions and training events in Australia, Canada and China as she prepares for WorldSkills — often described as the Olympics of the skilled trades.
For Sposito, the opportunity is about more than prize money or accolades.
“I always wanted to be an Olympian. This is kind of my way of becoming an Olympian in my own way,” Sposito said. "I also always wanted to be the first female to do something. When I was younger, I thought being president was the only thing left ... and I wasn't going to be president."
"When I found out about (WorldSkills), I was super excited that I got to get two of my biggest dreams in one go. That's why I worked so hard on this."
And while the stage in Shanghai awaits, her focus remains the same as it was in those 80-hour weeks.
“I never wanted anything more than this,” she said.
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Video by Daniel Koo. Photos by JD Scott.
Tags: Awards, SkillsUSA, Student Succes, Welding, Welding and Fabrication, WorldSkills