Barista Championship Southwest regional

It's time for Barista Championship!!

Barista Championship Southwest regional is held in Santa Cruz hosted by Verve coffee from Mar.15th to 17th.  There are the finalist:
Charles Babinski, G&B Coffee, L.A
Eden-Marie Abramowicz, Intelligentsia, L.A
Truman Severson, Portola Coffee Lab, Costa Mesa
John Martin, Intelligentsia, Pasadena
Stacey Kock, Verve Coffee Roasters, Santa Cruz
Kevin “Tex” Bohlin, St. Frank Coffee, SF

Needless to say, this competition is pre-competition of USBC, The United States Barista Championship, prior known as NABC,  the North American Barista Competition.  USBC has been organized in 2003, honored Heather Perry of Klatch Coffee as the first champion .
USBC has grown rapidly together with SCAA, Specialty Coffee Association of America, as the third waver overtake the market.  Barista does not mean an expert in "espresso" but an expert in coffee with several serving skills.  Nowadays, there are variety of serving skills to compete.   

In Southwest regional, there are two categories; espresso and pourover.  As usual, there are barista from notable cafes/roasters such as counter culture,  Intelligentsia, Klatch and, certainly, Verve.  
USBC is not only the path to WBC, The World Barista Championship, but the premier competition in the States.  Now the USBC regulation has becoming more and more comprehensive and unified to measure barista's brewing skills to knowledge of coffee in general.  Certainly.  This competition, - maybe these competitions since Barista championship is the world wide phenomena, - is the tool to spread the gospel of specialty coffee, and  had worked as it designed.  A national coffee roasters/cafes is more advantageous than a local to be recognized having an champion or the final stage nominees.  I assume this is the one of the reason has caused temperature difference toward USBC in the industry.  There are issues behind the curtain, which nothing to do with competitors.
USBC has raised the bar of the barista profession and brought fantastic/high quality/accessible coffee market to the States.  If good flavor and high quality coffee became more and more available, that benefits our coffee life in general.