Thomas Perez, US Secretary of Labor, center, spoke with third-year sheet metal apprentices Sean Bettencourt, left, and James Dearden, right, as Rachel Kaprielian, Massachusetts Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development listens during a Monday visit to the Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 17 in Lower Mills. Tiffannie Bond photo

While touring the Local 17 Sheet Metal Workers’ headquarters in Lower Mills on Monday, US Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez announced a $100 million program of competitive grants to help fund apprentice programs like Boston’s Building Pathways organization.

“For the first time, the Department of Labor, in our efforts to lift up apprenticeship and double the number of apprentices in the next five years, will put out a competitive grant program,” Perez told reporters after the tour.

The secretary hailed the four-year-old Boston program as a “pathway to the middle class” as he walked through the Lower Mills classrooms and workshop. Building Pathways is a six-week-long pre-apprenticeship program that introduces students to building trades across the city. The program is sponsored by the Building and Construction Trades Council of the Metropolitan District, a trade council made up of twenty affiliate local unions in the construction industry, representing 35,000 working families in Metropolitan Boston. It is followed by a five-year apprenticeship program. Local 17 also works with the local and national building trades sponsors with the apprenticeship programs Operation Exit and Helmets to Hardhats, which are meant to help move members of the military into careers in the building trades.

Last year, Building Pathways had nearly 200 applicants for 15 available spaces as organizers kept worrying about funding.

Perez anticipates that local programs will be able to apply for the grant funds within the next month. “We’ve got to scale this up,” he said, “because we’re leaving qualified people on the cutting room floor. The trades, historically, have had underrepresentation among African Americans, Latinos, and women, and part of what this program and the building trades are trying to do is to reach out to every community here in Boston. I’m confident there were more than 15 people in that applicant pool and that’s why we’re going to try to scale this up.”

John Healy, training coordinator of Sheet Metal Workers Local 17 and president of the Building Trades Training Directors Association, called Monday a “great day” for the program. “Ninety percent of our students are from Dorchester, so it’s good to see the inner-city kids getting the break, chance, and recognition,” he said.

After his tour, Perez sat for a roundtable discussion with seven apprenticeship students as well as local union leaders and Massachusetts Labor Secretary Rachel Kaprielian and asked what, if anything, he should tell President Barack Obama about the program.

“I’d tell President Obama to promote this idea across the country, to get kids interested in life skills,” said Patrick Pochette, in his fourth year of the apprenticeship program and a member of the first class of Building Pathways students in 2011. “Sometimes things don’t work out as you plan them, but because of this program, I have a good job,”

“The hope is that communities around the country take these partnerships and make sure they’re in every community around the country,” Perez said in reply. The secretary also noted how the program has been a boon to Boston’s booming construction sector, plugging students into a thriving job market. “All you have to do is drive around the city to see opportunity here.”

Perez said his Monday visit was inspired by Mayor Martin Walsh, a founder of Building Pathways. “I met with the mayor a few months back and there are few things he talks about with greater pride than Building Pathways. I wanted to see for myself what this was all about.”

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated John Healy is the Building Pathways program coordinator. Tyrone Kindell, Jr. is the project coordinator of the Building Pathways Building Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program. Healy is the training coordinator of Sheet Metal Workers Local 17 and president of the Building Trades Training Directors Association.