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Reza Mohammadi consistently trains award winning students in his computer networking lab at Guilford County School's Weaver Academy. Photographed, Tuesday, May 8, 2018, in Greensboro, N.C. JERRY WOLFORD and SCOTT MUTHERSBAUGH / Perfecta Visuals
During his 23 years of teaching at Weaver Academy, Reza Mohammadi often feels like a proud father.
He’s helped 10 of his students win national competitions in various categories of computer engineering technology, and he’s taken more than 50 of his students from Guilford County to that same national stage.
The competition is known as SkillsUSA Nationals, the Olympic trials for the country’s top career and technical education students. To get there, students have to do well in North Carolina’s SkillsUSA competition.
But to even compete at the state level, they had to get the green light from Mohammadi. And Mohammadi is meticulous.
He wants his students to be ready, and like some coach before a big game, he puts them through all sorts of exercises in his cavernous classroom full of computers.
If they do well, Mohammadi knows what awaits his students. It could be a future where they can earn six-figure salaries and work for companies like Subaru and Lockheed-Martin.
He’s reminded of that future every time he walks into his classroom. It’s right by the door. It’s a bulletin board full of pictures and newspaper articles of his former students by the door.
“I’ve accomplished something,” he tells himself.
He has -- more than his students really know.
Mohammadi fled his home country of Iran 40 years ago to escape the political turmoil. He flew out on the last plane, he says, with only $500 in his pocket and a small bag that contained a few clothes and an American dictionary.
Mohammadi was 18. He came to the United States by himself. He was a math whiz who couldn’t speak a word of English.
But he learned.
He ended up earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from West Virginia University and
During his 23 years of teaching at Weaver Academy, Reza Mohammadi often feels like a proud father.
He’s helped 10 of his students win national competitions in various categories of computer engineering technology, and he’s taken more than 50 of his students from Guilford County to that same national stage.
The competition is known as SkillsUSA Nationals, the Olympic trials for the country’s top career and technical education students. To get there, students have to do well in North Carolina’s SkillsUSA competition.
But to even compete at the state level, they had to get the green light from Mohammadi. And Mohammadi is meticulous.
He wants his students to be ready, and like some coach before a big game, he puts them through all sorts of exercises in his cavernous classroom full of computers.
If they do well, Mohammadi knows what awaits his students. It could be a future where they can earn six-figure salaries and work for companies like Subaru and Lockheed-Martin.
He’s reminded of that future every time he walks into his classroom. It’s right by the door. It’s a bulletin board full of pictures and newspaper articles of his former students by the door.
“I’ve accomplished something,” he tells himself.
He has -- more than his students really know.
Mohammadi fled his home country of Iran 40 years ago to escape the political turmoil. He flew out on the last plane, he says, with only $500 in his pocket and a small bag that contained a few clothes and an American dictionary.
Mohammadi was 18. He came to the United States by himself. He was a math whiz who couldn’t speak a word of English.
But he learned.
He ended up earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from West Virginia University and
