Joe Youcha

Joe Youcha developed and runs Building To Teach, a train the trainer program for hands-on math instructors. Building To Teach reintroduces the building process as a context for math instruction. Started with funding from the Office of Naval Research and national in scope, the program utilizes all of Joe’s experiences bringing more effective resources to young people who need math skills.

Annually, the web-based training is used by over 600 instructors from boat building related programs and over 300 instructors from carpentry related programs. In person instruction trains another approximately 60 instructors in week-long trainings. These instructors serve approximately 10,000 students per year.

Growing up along the Hudson River in Rockland County, New York, a fascination with boats began when Joe’s dad came home with an eight-foot wooden sailboat. Joe studied Naval Architecture at University of Michigan and earned a B.A. in History from Columbia College, Columbia University. He was trained as an architectural restoration carpenter in New York City and worked as a construction superintendent and project manager: eventually owning a construction company with his wife Jessica in Philadelphia.

In 1992, Joe helped start the boat building programs at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation (ASF). Executive Director from 1995 until 2010, Joe’s responsibilities included program development, as well as all the fundraising and management duties of a medium sized, regional non-profit organization. During those years, the Alexandria Seaport Foundation created experiential learning programs to teach young people math skills and work-readiness through the process of boat building. The work force development/ wooden boat building apprenticeship served hundreds of the Washington area’s most disadvantaged youths evolving to be both a job-based GED program and a certified pre apprenticeship for the Carpenters’ Union. The job-based GED was one of the first of its kind and has been used as a national model.

ASF’s community boat building efforts have served thousands of young people through work with their families, schools, or juvenile detention facilities. In 1997, Joe led the design group that developed Bevin’s Skiff, a small boat specifically designed as a teaching tool. To date, there have been over 2,000 of these boats built with young people. In 1998 with WoodenBoat magazine, Joe developed Family Boat Building: an international effort that has led to tens of thousands of families building their own boats.

The Alexandria Seaport Foundation’s work received recognition and commendation at the national, state and local level, including the President of the United States, the First Lady of the United States, Virginia’s Governor, and Virginia’s Attorney General. Joe has been named Washingtonian of the Year and is an Alexandria Living Legend and Non-Profit Executive of the Year. His work has been featured nationally on NPR, PBS, The Today Show and CBS News.

The close relationship with the Carpenter’s Union led to Joe being a co-author of the Union’s math text and training materials. These materials are used primarily by over 40,000 first year apprentices, and the thousands of high school students and pre-apprentices using the union’s Career Connections curriculum. Joe also developed a Carpentry Math Instructors Guide to support the Jobs Corps Carpentry instructors at 70 training centers who are tasked with preparing their students for the math on the TABE test. Joe helps train the Union’s math instructors who teach at over 230 training centers in the U.S. and Canada, as well as the Union administered Job Corps centers. He also helps the Eastern Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters develop community-based training opportunities. Additionally, Joe helped develop the Carpenters Union “Training Foundations” assessment class for new and incoming apprenticeship instructors.

Joe also co-founded and now chairs, the Teaching with Small Boats Alliance (TWSBA.) An international alliance of over 300 groups who use small boats as teaching tools, the members reach over 100,000 young people and 100,000 adults annually. TWSBA’s purpose is to facilitate the sharing of information and best practices, as well as supporting collaboration between member organizations.

In 2009, Joe was a fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Workforce Development Initiative. The son of a journalist, Joe has written five books about hands on math instruction, and another about researching his family history. He has also been a Contributing Editor of Tools of The Trade Magazine, as well as a contributor to WoodenBoat magazine.

Fundamentally, Joe is a builder by nature- it’s been boats, houses, and lots and lots of young people.