Tully Young is the founder of Blue Tongue Skills and Better Than Reality (BTR) Virtual Reality Training. With over 20 years of experience addressing skills shortages in the mining industry, he has built his career around supporting businesses facing long-term trade skill gaps and productivity challenges.
Under his leadership, Blue Tongue Skills has for almost two decades pioneered international hiring of trades for Australian industry having employed and managed more than 1,000 specialist technicians from Africa and other parts of the world. Tully also started the concept of upskilling in trades in 2010 and has since successfully group trained and employed over 1,000 Light Vehicle Mechanics to transition into Heavy Mobile Plant Mechanics for the Australian mining sector.
Tully’s commitment to delivering innovative, enterprise led training solutions led him to explore the potential of virtual reality in workforce training. This vision became the foundation for BTR Virtual Reality Training, which leverages VR technology to streamline operations, boost productivity, reduce cost and workforce risk.
Tully graduated from La Trobe University in Melbourne (BA in Economics and Politics) in 1995.
After working in recruitment services and the on-hire sector for a number of years, Tully’s passion to provide skills solutions for industry led him to start Blue Tongue in 2001. The business went from a start-up in 2001 to $53M in sales in 2024.
Blue Tongue has grown to become Australia’s largest employer of mature-age apprentices and a leading workforce development consultancy, and a pioneer in training innovation programs.
