NORTHAMPTON — Dozens of markings on an oval-shaped floor model represent each of Metrica’s meticulously crafted curved furniture pieces, with each piece of concave wood paneling, doors and shelving attempting to do the impossible: turn a traditionally-cubed room into an ellipse.

The project, which took 8,000 hours for a nine-person team, is just one of the many innovative applications of woodworking that young professional Billy Czupkiewicz didn’t even know existed before coming to the German-based custom furniture company’s Northampton location as the branch’s newest apprentice.

“Coming here, obviously it’s a lot more depth,” Czupkiewicz said on Tuesday during a site visit from Lauren Jones, the state’s secretary of Labor and Workforce Development who toured Metrica to learn about its apprenticeship program. “I probably learned about a dozen things I (now) know how to do on the machines in only a month’s time.”

Metrica bought Northampton-based VCA Inc. — a company famous for crafting a mahogany manuscript storage case for Bill Gates — in January 2024 to form its first American production site. Both companies specialize in high-end residential furnishings, with most of its creations ending up in Manhattan or Miami high-rises or California mansions.

Metrica brought a new apprenticeship program to the Northampton site that combines online certification from Woodworking Career Alliance (WCA) with on-site experience. The program, Apprenticeship Training Committee member Stephanie Sawyer said, aims to teach young woodworkers like Czupkiewicz machine safety vital to any woodworking job, the various ways to construct a piece of furniture and the thought process behind how to build a piece.

“We work with interior designers and decorators, architects from all over the country,” Sawyer said. “They just have a scope of what they want it to look like in the end, and it’s our job to make it possible, build it and figure out how to engineer it.”

During her visit to Metrica, Jones presented the company with a Massachusetts Apprenticeship Proclamation. The tour coincided with National Apprenticeship Week this week that has included a flurry of events to highlight the importance of apprenticeships. Earlier in the day Tuesday, Jones attended a “girls in trade” event at Dean Technical High School in Holyoke.

Then on Wednesday, the labor secretary spoke at a celebration hosted by the Massachusetts Apprenticeship Network, an offshoot of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

“When you think about apprenticeships, some may immediately think of your plumber, your electrician, your carpenter. And yes, that is true, and there’s a huge proven model, and their proven model helps to unlock more opportunities,” Jones said Wednesday at Suffolk University, as she touted more women and people of color joining the building trades.

Jones also announced $3.2 million for apprenticeship grant funding, expected to support 29 organizations and place 514 apprentices, at Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute in Boston.

Eligible employers with registered apprenticeship programs can secure a state tax credit of up to $4,800 per apprentice. Apprenticeships offer longer-term opportunities compared to internships, and participants can gain upskilling or reskilling training while earning industry credentials.

Apprenticeship graduates saw their earnings increase nearly 50% when measured across a year before their program and a year after completing it, according to a recent study highlighted by Suffolk University President Marisa Kelly.

“I get to go around different companies, really, to highlight all the awesome things that companies are doing, but also find some best practices to encourage more companies to do the same,” Jones told Czupkiewicz during her visit to Northampton. “And apprenticeship is one of those models that we know more companies can adopt to bring in more people that can learn on the job and help to build out the workforce.”

Dee Cady, Metrica’s U.S. director of human resources, said the company uses a three-pronged approach to grow the woodworking workforce in western Massachusetts: hire existing talent from across the country, visit trade schools in the United States to recruit new talent and develop young professionals in the apprenticeship program. The three-person Apprenticeship Training Committee switches off between their full-time jobs and mentorship responsibilities, giving apprentices several perspectives on woodworking processes.

“It’s really about bringing young people into the industry,” Apprenticeship Training Committee Member Jason Halfacre said. “There’s so many skilled makers in this area but we’re all aging. We’re thinking about 10, 20 years in the future, and where are we going to be? We want to create a desire to do this awesome work.”

Ryan Williams, the third training committee member, said the Metrica program aims to grow with the apprentice. The program breaks each job-related task into a checklist of smaller skills. Each apprentice must show a mastery of each assignment on the checklist before performing the larger task for a job.

In addition, apprentices watch an hour of online training videos each day to achieve their WCA certification, and are given smaller projects to work their new skills. Czupkiewicz said he spent a week sanding wood, another week building his work station and a different week shadowing industry professionals.

“They have me bouncing around, trying to get as much experience in everything as I can,” he added.

The apprenticeship will take Czupkiewicz through every step of the woodworking process, from engineering and construction to wood finishes and transportation logistics. Since many of Metrica’s United States clients live in luxury apartments, Sawyer said the woodworkers design pieces to fit in elevators, travel up stairways and pass through doors. It takes a lot of creative joinery to construct each piece, like the special hinges for the concave doors of the elliptical room.

“Ask three woodworkers how to do something, you’ll get five answers, and they’re all going to be right,” Williams said. “There’s so many ways to do almost everything we do. It’s really about learning to identify the safest and most efficient method for each process.”

Currently, the program is in its first year, and Czupkiewicz is the second apprentice the company has hired. Sawyer said Metrica will eventually take on more apprentices, but for now the committee is still working out the kinks of the program.

“I think after we’ve had our little test, we’ll run the program, see where we can improve. Maybe there’s some gaps in our system, and then hopefully we can add more and more,” she said.

State House News Service reporter Alison Kuznitz contributed to this report. Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.