Diploma or GED
Trades Futures assumes you already hold your high school credential. If you do not, YouthBuild will get you one while you train.
Program · Adults, no age limit
Trades Futures
You finished school. You are working, or between work, and you keep hearing the trades are where the careers are. Trades Futures is how you find out for yourself — the same credentials, the same instructors, the same union halls, without the age ceiling.
What makes it different
Exposure, not remediation
YouthBuild splits the week between construction and finishing your education. Trades Futures does not need that second half — participants arrive with a diploma or GED already in hand.
What is left is the part everybody actually came for: tools, shop time, safety certification, and a straight introduction to the nineteen affiliate unions and the apprenticeships they run.
Eligibility
Who Trades Futures is for
Any age
There is no upper age. Career changers, people coming out of other industries, and adults who missed the 16–24 window all belong here.
Georgia resident
The Academy is in downtown Atlanta, on the third floor of the IBEW building just west of the Downtown Connector.
Both at once
You can be in both programs
The two programs run side by side in the same building, and plenty of participants are enrolled in both. If you are 16–24 and already have your diploma, that is exactly the case co-enrollment is for — you get YouthBuild’s support alongside Trades Futures’ exposure. Apply once; we will sort out which programs fit when we talk.
Same credentials
MC3, OSHA 10/30, welding, forklift, and First Aid/CPR/AED — the identical stack of cards a YouthBuild participant earns.
Same union access
Nineteen affiliate unions and their Joint Apprenticeship Training Committees, met directly rather than through an application portal.
Same placement support
Career placement staff work the apprenticeship application with you and stay with you after you are on a job site.
One application, both programs
There is no cost to apply and no cost to attend. Call 404-584-0005 or start online.
Start your application