He graduated from West Point in 1875 and was appointed a second lieutenant with the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Young was ordained a seventy in 1891 and served as a Mutual Improvement Association Missionary in Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties in northern Utah.

[1] While working for the Corps of Engineers, Young was involved in making detailed maps of northern Utah and southern Idaho.

However, later problems with the board of trustees designated for this academy, as well as growing friction between the Church and the federal government, delayed its establishment.

No results of consequence had been obtained by August 1883, when Willard Young returned to Salt Lake City after his teaching appointments at West Point.

He immediately began talking to the other trustees, and sought to obtain financial backing from the LDS Church.

As part of this push, in June 1888 the General Church Board of Education examined the deed of trust for the Brigham Young Academy at Salt Lake City.

Following the meeting, Wilford Woodruff wrote a letter to Willard Young asking his aid in using the deeded property for the Salt Lake Stake Academy.

It apparently was intended to become 'the' Mormon institution of higher learning, and a high class university, second to none in the west.

He vigorously promoted, arranged, planned, persuaded, and by September 1893 the institution began presenting lectures at 233 West 200 North.