The Young Architect's Forum (YAF) is a program of the American Institute of Architects and the College of Fellows (COF) and is organized to address issues of particular importance to recently licensed architects, within 10 years after licensure. YAF is an outgrowth of a 1989 AIA Grassroots program. The issues raised and potential benefits visualized at that meeting led to the 1991 formation of a national YAF advisory committee to encourage the development of national and regional programs of interest to young architects and the creation of YAF groups within local chapters.

The New Mexico YAF is chartered by the state component. We have taken into consideration the small size of the populace of NM by including all emerging professionals, unregistered architects, Associate AIA and AIAS members. We focus on developing leadership, fellowship and mentorship.

Early NM YAF organizers felt that a mentorship program was something that the AIA chapters were not already doing and this was a niche YAF could fill. In the fall of 2009, NM YAF introduced a mentorship program for Young Architects to connect with an experienced architect or AIA Fellow for a duration of six months. We had 18 participants our first year. Since the spring of 2010, NM YAF has mentored students from the UNM SA+P. We typically have around 30 participants 15 mentors and 15 students in the program with excellent results! We start and end each program with a get-together where we can share experiences.

In addition to the mentorship programs, NM YAF has been sponsoring hard hat tours. The annual AIA tour is completed buildings, and we wanted to show buildings at 50% completion to teach students and young architects about construction and building systems. YAF NM tries to have one every spring and fall and we are always looking for suggestions.