Driven to Compete

Chaz Thomas sets his sights on gold — and the world stage

Charles “Chaz” Thomas has never been the type to back down from competition.

During this year’s Massachusetts state wrestling championships, the Cape Cod Technical High School junior tore his hamstring in his first match. He didn’t know the severity of the injury at the time. He simply tried to walk it off.

Then Thomas stepped back onto the mat to wrestle two more matches that day, winning one before swelling and pain finally forced him out of the tournament. He ultimately finished eighth in the state – and spent the next several weeks in a wheelchair recovering from surgery to repair the tear.

That same competitive drive has made him one of Massachusetts’ top HVAC students as he took home a bronze medal at the 2026 SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference in Atlanta.

“Competition is just something I love,” Thomas said. “My shop teacher saw that in me and thought SkillsUSA would be a good opportunity to express that.”

It proved to be an understatement.

As a freshman, Thomas initially had little interest in SkillsUSA, but conversations with his teachers changed his mind. As a sophomore, he entered the state HVAC competition largely as a learning experience for both him and his shop teacher, Sean Doyle.

“We really didn’t know much about it,” he said. “It was kind of a recon mission.”

By climbing the podium that year after coming in third, Thomas became the first Cape Cod Tech student to earn a medal at the state competition.

This year, as a junior, he brought bigger ambitions. Thomas won gold at the Massachusetts SkillsUSA Championships – barely out of the wheelchair after his wrestling injury.

That victory earned him a spot in nationals, with support from a Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Travel Grant. The scholarship helped cover expenses, particularly as his injury prevented him from participating in many team fund-raising efforts.

Thomas approached the national competition much the same way he approaches everything else – by preparing and trusting himself, again with counsel from his school leaders.

“We went in pretty blind,” he said. “We knew the standards, but we didn’t know exactly what they were going to throw at us. A lot of the preparation was mental. I just relied on my critical thinking and the skills I already had.”

Those skills have been built through countless hours in the classroom and on the job Thomas works through Cape Cod Tech’s cooperative education program with Whiteley Plumbing and Heating, where he gains hands-on experience with installing residential systems and troubleshooting those on the fritz.

“A lot of what I do in the field really helps with competition,” he said. “You can only simulate so much in a shop environment.”

At nationals, competitors rotated through stations covering nearly every aspect of HVAC – troubleshooting why furnaces and air conditioning systems weren’t working, diagnosing refrigeration units, performing piping projects and demonstrating safe refrigerant recovery procedures.

Thomas entered unsure of what to expect.

Once competition began, his confidence grew.

“I realized pretty quickly that this was all stuff I knew,” he said. “There were some things I’d never seen before, and some details the judges were looking for that I didn’t know about, but I felt way more comfortable than I expected.”

Still, he had no idea where he stood.

After the competition concluded, he called his HVAC instructor.

“I told him, ‘Honestly, I couldn’t tell you if I’m going to get first or last,’” Thomas recalled with a laugh. But Doyle wasn’t worried, as “he had confidence in me the whole time.”

When Massachusetts was announced during the awards ceremony, Thomas jumped to his feet.

“It was all smiles after that,” he said. “I expected to be there, but it was still exciting and surprising.”

That national bronze medal capped a whirlwind year that also included football, wrestling, AP classes, travel abroad and balancing work with recovery from his injury – though the injury kept him from a planned spring switch from competing track to lacrosse.

Going into his senior year, Thomas isn’t slowing down. He plans to continue playing football and wrestling, maintain his co-op position and begin exploring college options in engineering or HVAC-related fields. But another goal looms largest.

He wants to return to the U.S. competition in Atlanta next year. And this time, he’s aiming even higher.

“My plan is 100% to get back to nationals and win the gold,” he said. “Now that I know the specifics of every station and what the judges are looking for, I’m really confident.”

But even that isn’t the finish line.

“When I first started, I thought nationals was the pinnacle,” Thomas said. “Then I got there and learned about WorldSkills. I was like, ‘OK, I want to go there. I just want to chase the next level.”