As a student, Bao Altmann was introverted beyond words, the type of young person who would rather “hide under the table” than navigate the social hierarchies of high school, said Robert Altmann, Bao’s father.

Against the backdrop of the Minnesota State Fair’s Department of Natural Resources Park, Robert and Kristine Altmann watched with pride this week as Bao, 21, walked St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter through the intricacies of lashing together the stringers and wooden ribs of a hand-crafted canoe, one of a number of canoes, kayaks, paddles and longboards Bao’s assembled as a youth instructor with Urban Boatbuilders.

“If I do this wrong will somebody, like, sink?” deadpanned the mayor, unspooling threading.

“No,” said Altmann, gesturing reassuringly. “All these lashes work together to hold everything together, even if one comes apart. All these lashes work together as a team.”

The metaphor for teamwork wasn’t lost on Altmann, who has been involved with the St. Paul-based nonprofit for the past year.

“I never thought I’d be a teacher, ever,” said Altmann, who uses they/them pronouns, “and here I am at the State Fair.”

30 years of training young people

Established in 1995, the University Avenue-based nonprofit will soon celebrate 30 years of training young people ages 16 to 21 in the art of boatbuilding through classes and paid apprenticeships. Some 60 apprentices — 20 at a time — cycle through its paid trainings throughout the year, while another 750 to 1,000 middle school, high school and college students participate in instruction through partnerships with some 16 schools, summer camps and community organizations.

Youth instructor Nabanni Boda, 18, of St. Paul, said about half the enrollees this summer are looking at college, while the other half have shown interest in trade programs, or in other programming in line with Urban Boatbuilders, which eases young people — many of them women or openly LGBTQ — into hands-on learning.

“It’s a really safe place for brown and queer people, and I’m both of those,” said Boda, who plans to study biology and geology at Macalester College in the fall. “It wasn’t what I was expecting from the trades. It’s a really good place.”

Development director Gretchen Wilbrandt said Urban Boatbuilders drew as many as five applicants for each opening this summer, which is testament to how starved many young people are for hands-on work experiences in the technology age, and how eager they are to prove to themselves they can absorb the physical work skills.

“It can be this outlet of confidence. ‘I’m done with screens,’” she said. “Then they get in the boat and they say, ‘I built this! It actually floats!”

Teamwork. critical problem solving and communication

A boat build takes about 70 hours of group work, with groups drawing 8 to 10 students at a time.

In addition to hiring directly from the community, Urban Boatbuilders has partnered with the city of St. Paul to hire youth interns through the city’s Right Track program, which placed a record 900 young people in temporary employment throughout the metro this summer.

Marc Hosmer, Urban Boatbuilders’ longtime executive director, said some schools incorporate the boat builds into their math or social studies curriculums, though the nonprofit offers its own social/emotional learning program, which emphasizes three fundamental work skills: teamwork, critical problem solving and communication. As an avenue into potential careers, students are exposed to additional training programs focused on trade skills and manufacturing, and some are hired on staff.

Hosmer said Urban Boatbuilders launched its longboard-making program in recent years as a kind of mini-build, allowing participants to keep their finished longboards.

“Coming out of the pandemic, it was rough. It was both scary on the financial side, and constantly having to pivot and figure out how to be relevant,” Hosmer said. Still, “we’ve been growing over the last 15 years or so, doing our best to expand as much as we can.”

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