Build your future by building for others

A job in the construction trades can take you anywhere from a hands-on carpenter to a site superintendent, from building design to construction project management … and you can start your career skills training right here at the Spokane Home Builders Association’s Apprenticeship & Training Program.

Designed to produce skilled workers who are fully competent in all aspects of their chosen trade, an apprenticeship is a system of employment training that combines supervised, on-the-job training with formal technical instruction.

For the thousands of young people coming out of high school who are not moving on to college and are looking for an alternative, or someone who is employed and seeking advancement, or even a dislocated worker, apprenticeship represents the best avenue for obtaining the education and on-the-job training for a high-paying career.

Like a college education, the successful completion of an apprenticeship program is the result of hard work. Apprenticeship programs combine on-the-job training with related classroom instruction to produce a qualified journey person that has no equal.

Apprenticeship has existed almost from the dawn of recorded history. It has withstood the test of time. Other work force training programs have tried, but none has been as successful as this system of apprenticeship.

The Spokane Home Builders Association’s “Residential Carpentry” Apprenticeship program is a four-year initiative, combining full-time employment and on-the-job training with evening classroom instruction. During an average year, each apprentice logs approximately 2,000 hours of paid work experience in the field with a minimum of 144 hours of classroom instruction. At the end of four years, the apprentice graduates from the program as a Journeyman Residential Carpenter.

A nationally recognized Certificate of Completion and Journeyman’s card is then issued to the apprentice graduate by the State of Washington and the graduate is qualified to work anywhere in the country for top dollar.

Completion of the program also earns the individual college credit toward an Associate of Applied Sciences degree from Spokane Community College!

Take a look around. Now consider this: Every building you see needed a team of skilled carpenters to complete it; even the furniture in our homes is crafted by someone who has training in the carpentry trade. Carpentry is a multi-faceted specialty in the construction industry. Carpentry skills are used in milling, fastening, joining, assembling, erecting and dismantling structural and architectural materials, and these are just some of the responsibilities a good carpenter will handle during a day’s work. Additionally, carpenters use a wide array of hand tools, power tools and precision instruments every day.

While many carpenters are employed on new construction sites, others earn their living doing remodeling or structural alteration work. As you can see, carpentry is a wide-open field with many job opportunities and the chance to increase your take-home pay as your craft skills grow. But even more importantly, since carpenters are generally familiar with the entire construction process, they are regularly presented with opportunities to be promoted to construction foremen and superintendents.

The construction industry pays well, and offers great job security. As a matter of fact, the industry currently needs well over 200,000 new men and women to enter the trades each year to keep up with the need for new homes.

Yearly income for skilled residential carpenters ranges from first-year pay of approximately $24,000, to experienced, skilled men and women earning $55,000.

Long-term career opportunities in construction supervision can command $38,000-$100,000 annually!

So go ahead, make the decision now — choose a lucrative and stable future as a residential carpenter, and start on the road to earning excellent wages and benefits for you and your family!