In the months before his senior year, while many students were catching their breath from finals and savoring a well-earned break, Liam Dilley was solving problems that stretched from factory floors to construction sites to the inner workings of engines. At the SkillsUSA National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, he became a national champion in Related Technical Math, rising from a fourth-place finish at state to claim the country’s top spot.

SkillsUSA itself is no small stage. Serving more than 331,000 students and instructors annually, and recognized by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Labor, the organization champions America’s skilled trades. Its mission is to empower students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders, and responsible community members, and its competitions highlight excellence in fields from health sciences to manufacturing to technical math—the very event in which Liam triumphed.

It was, in every way he told me, an unlikely victory. “At state I finished fourth, so I needed a little luck just to get to nationals,” Liam admitted. But when he arrived, he joined 39 of the brightest high school mathematicians from across the country, each facing the same test: not abstract equations scrawled on a chalkboard, but math applied to the real world. Angles that determine whether a beam can carry its load. Heat expansion that might compromise a machine part. The exact tolerances that allow engines to run safely.

Liam excelled. His careful eye and precise reasoning carried him past every competitor. “In our everyday lives, if you look around the room, there are all these geometric shapes,” he explained, gesturing around our interview room. “When they’re making parts for machines, all of that has to be meticulously calculated and measured. Like if something’s made of metal and it heats up, it may expand—what are we going to do about it?”

It’s the kind of thinking that reflects both the theoretical and the practical, the elegant and the concrete. That balance defines Liam. He is both swimmer and mathematician, marching band member and Scholastic Bowl competitor. His favorite swim stroke—the breaststroke—requires an exactness of timing that mirrors his academic style. He thrives in precision, yet he is open to possibilities. “I’ve done swimming all four years, and marching band. I like joining activities as they come along,” he said with quiet assurance.

Even his intellectual heroes reflect this mix of rigor and imagination. He cites mathematician Po-Shen Loh, who once described testing every new idea by immediately trying to destroy it in his own mind—discarding 99 percent but holding on to the one that survives. “That 1% he makes use of,” Liam said. It is a process of discipline, humility, and trust in the rare spark that endures.

As Liam looks toward college, he sees his future somewhere in the nexus of biology, chemistry, and computer science—perhaps medical research, perhaps a lab where new discoveries ripple out to change the way we understand the world. He doesn’t claim to know yet, but he does know this: he will bring the same exacting focus and resilience that made him a champion.

That focus is rooted in Galesburg itself. “I really like the community here,” Liam said. “We’re kind of a small town, but it’s nice to see that we have a thriving band program, we have CTE at the GAVC, we have sports teams. Throughout the years I’ve been here, there’s been a lot of improvement.” He is quick to notice that not every student will follow the same path, and he values that his school honors all of them—college-bound scholars, trade-bound innovators, and everyone in between.

For Liam, the SkillsUSA experience captured that truth. Yes, he won a medal. But what it really meant was a stage filled with young people from every corner of the country, each demonstrating that excellence takes many forms. Some built, some repaired, some solved equations, all of them proving that skill—any skill, pursued with passion—can be a pathway to success.

In the quiet way he carries himself, Liam would never call himself a symbol. But he is. He represents what is possible when talent is met with perseverance, when precision is paired with imagination, when a student believes that remarkable things can happen even after finishing fourth at state.

And in that sense, his story is less about math than it is about something larger: the faith that no matter where you begin, with enough patience, practice, and courage, you can measure your way forward with a beautiful precision.