Eight students from Girard College and 8 students from Jules E. Mastbaum AVTS High School will take part in a hands-on field visit to the Philadelphia Training Center as part of a 10-week after-school mentoring program introducing young people to careers in architecture, construction, engineering, and the trades.
During the visit, students will be organized into small groups, paired with an IMI and BAC Local 1 mentor, then have opportunities to participate in different masonry activities, including bricklaying, blocklaying, and tilesetting.
Students have already toured construction sites, toured behind the scenes at Carpenters’ Hall, participated in activities led by landscape architects, architects and engineers, and they toured INTECH Construction’s main office. Students will get a tour of the Community College of Philadelphia and have a Villanova professor as a guest lecturer before the series concludes in April.
The Carpenters’ Company of the City and County of Philadelphia (a three hundred year old trade guild that runs Old City’s Carpenters’ Hall, home of 1774’s First Continental Congress) created the unique program in partnership with the ACE Mentor Program of Greater Philadelphia. The initiative pairs students with volunteer industry professionals for presentations, demonstrations, site visits, and applied learning experiences. This program was named “Ace Mentor Program of the Year in 2025.”
This program is part of the Master Builders’ Institute, the educational arm of the Carpenters’ Company that prioritizes outreach to new generations of ACE professionals as professional development for already established architects, contractors, and engineers.
The program gives students early exposure to in-demand career pathways while helping strengthen a more diverse pipeline into the professions that shape Philadelphia’s buildings, infrastructure, and neighborhoods. ACE Mentor’s national mission is to help high school students pursue careers in architecture, engineering, and construction through mentoring and continued support.
