So good in wood: Goodwin Tech student crafts cabinets with the best

All it took was one cabinetry class in his freshman year at E.C. Goodwin Technical High School and Aaron Boutin was hooked.

Boutin not only took cabinetry in his freshman and sophomore years, but excelled in it.

It came as no surprise, then, to shop teacher Mike Cyr that Boutin, who recently completed his junior year, placed first in the state for cabinet making. Boutin took his talents to Louisville, Ky., last month for the SkillsUSA national cabinet-making championship. He finished ninth of 49 competitors.

“I knew right away that he had a special talent,” said Cyr, who graduated from Goodwin Tech in 1975 and has been teaching there for 27 years. “Just the way he presents himself in shop as a student is something special. He has always been serious about his education. He’s an adult in a young body. His maturity level definitely exceeds his age. I have no doubt he will have a successful career. Finishing in the top nine nationally will look great on a resume.”

Boutin, 17, said he’ll either join the carpentry union as a carpenter or become a cabinet maker.

Boutin said he is confident in his abilities and was not surprised either by his top placing in Connecticut or by his placing ninth nationally.

“I really wasn’t super surprised because I knew I’d do better than before. I had more experience,” said Boutin, a Bristol resident who finished third in the state last year.

Boutin was eager Thursday to show off his skills in cabinet making.

“I like working on cabinets,” he said. “It’s problem solving and building and I enjoy both.”

In the state competition, in which 13 others competed, Boutin had to build a base cabinet from scratch. The cabinet, similar to a kitchen cabinet, has one door and a drawer and is 31½ inches tall.

“They gave you the rough materials, such as plywood, hinges and drawer slides,” he said. “Our job was to assemble it and put the joints into it. We had to complete the project in six hours. I did it in about three hours.”

All participants in the state and national competitions had identical materials to work with.

In the nationals, Boutin did not see the blueprints for his project until the day before the competition. He had to assemble a 35-inch-tall writing desk, which he did in about eight hours.

“I had to the put the whole desk together. The most time-consuming part were the legs, because they had to be glued together. You then had to wait for them to dry and go to the next leg and wait for it to dry,” he said.

For making the national competition, Boutin received tools, a set of drills, a nail gun and a sander.

Read the story on the New Britain Herald’s website here.