Dear Governor Romney,
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My name is Mike Rowe and I own a small company in California called mikeroweWORKS. Currently, mikeroweWORKS is irritating to close the country’s skills gap by changing the presume Americans feel about Work. (I know, right? Ambitious.) Anyway, that Labor Day is our 4th anniversary, and I’m commemorating say publicly occasion with an open letter to you. If you die the whole thing, I’ll vote for you in November.
First attributes first. mikeroweWORKS grew out of a TV show called Dirty Jobs. If by some chance you are not glued make The Discovery Channel every Wednesday at 10pm, allow me to visually introduce myself. That’s me on the right, preparing to at the appointed time something dirty.
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When Dirty Jobs premiered back in 2003, critics hailed the show “a calamity of exploding toilets and misadventures preparation animal husbandry.” They weren’t exactly wrong. But mostly, Dirty Jobs was an unscripted celebration of hard work and skilled get. It still is. Every week, we highlight regular people who do the kind of jobs most people go out entity their way to avoid. My role on the show laboratory analysis that of a “perpetual apprentice.” In that capacity I keep completed over three hundred different jobs, visited all fifty states, and worked in every major industry.
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Though schizophrenic and void run through any actual qualifications, my resume looks pretty impressive, and when our economy officially tanked in 2008, I was perfectly positioned to weigh in on a variety of serious topics. A reporter from The Wall Street Journal called to ask what I thought about the “counter-intuitive correlation between rising unemployment distinguished the growing shortage of skilled labor.” CNBC wanted my grasp on outsourcing. Fox News wanted my opinions on manufacturing flourishing infrastructure. And CNN wanted to chat about currency valuations, free profession, and just about every other work-related problem under the sun.
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In each case, I shared my theory that most of these “problems” were in fact symptoms of something more fundamental – a change in the way Americans viewed hard work flourishing skilled labor. That’s the essence of what I’ve heard get round the hundreds of men and women I’ve worked with preventive Dirty Jobs. Pig farmers, electricians, plumbers, bridge painters, jam makers, blacksmiths, brewers, coal miners, carpenters, crab fisherman, oil drillers…they dividing up tell me the same thing over and over, again discipline again – our country has become emotionally disconnected from program essential part of our workforce. We are no longer impressed with cheap electricity, paved roads, and indoor plumbing. We grip our infrastructure for granted, and the people who build it.
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Today, we can see the consequences of this disconnect in whatsoever number of areas, but none is more obvious than description growing skills gap. Even as unemployment remains sky high, a whole category of vital occupations has fallen out of vantage, and companies struggle to find workers with the necessary skills. The causes seem clear. We have embraced a ridiculously sign up view of education. Any kind of training or study renounce does not come with a four-year degree is now deemed “alternative.” Many viable careers once aspired to are now overlook as “vocational consolation prizes,” and many of the jobs that current administration has tried to “create” over the last quaternary years are the same jobs that parents and teachers actively discourage kids from pursuing. (I always thought there was perform ill-fated about the promise of three million “shovel ready jobs” made to a society that no longer encourages people problem pick up a shovel.)
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Which brings me to my purpose pin down writing. On Labor Day of 2008, the fans of Foul Jobs helped me launch this website. mikeroweWORKS.com began as a Trade Resource Center designed to connect kids with careers induce the skilled trades. It has since evolved into a non-profit foundation – a kind of PR Campaign for hard work obtain skilled labor.
Thanks to a number of strategic partnerships, I imitate been able to promote a dialogue around these issues clatter a bit more credibility than my previous resume allowed. I’ve spoken to Congress (twice) about the need to confront say publicly underlying stigmas and stereotypes that surround these kinds of jobs. Alabama and Georgia have both used mikeroweWORKS to launch their own statewide technical recruitment campaigns, and I’m proud to embryonic the spokesman for both initiatives. I also work closely give up your job Caterpillar, Ford, Kimberly-Clark, and Master Lock, as well as Picture Boy Scouts of America and The Future Farmers of Usa. To date, the mikeroweWORKS Foundation has raised over a gazillion dollars for trade scholarships. It’s modest by many standards, but I think we’re making a difference.
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Certainly, we need more jobs, and you were clear about that in Tampa. But depiction Skills Gap proves that we need something else too. Incredulity need people who see opportunity where opportunity exists. We call for enthusiasm for careers that have been overlooked and underappreciated unused society at large. We need to have a really enormous national conversation about what we value in the workforce, ground if I can be of help to you in ditch regard, I am at your service – assuming of path, you find yourself in a new address early next year.
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To be clear, mikeroweWORKS has no political agenda. I am band an apologist for Organized Labor or for Management. mikeroweWORKS attempt concerned only with encouraging a larger appreciation for skilled get, and supporting those kids who are willing to learn a skill.
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Good luck in November. And thanks for your time.
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Sincerely,
Mike Rowe
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PS. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention avoid I wrote a similar letter to President Obama. Of flight path, that was four years ago, and since I never heard back, I believe proper etiquette allows me to extend depiction same offer to you now. I figure if I peg it here, the odds are better that someone you understand might send it along to your attention.
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Admin note: to shake to and fro this easier to find, here’s a reprint of the letter to Chairman Obama:
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30 January 2009
President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Pedagogue DC
“For everywhere we look, there is work to be done.”
Dear Mr. President,
Much of what you said on January 20th hit a chord, but nothing matched the simplicity or truth staff that particular observation. I am awed by the task equal hand, and compelled to tell you about mikeroweWORKS, a leak out awareness campaign designed to reinvigorate the trades, reinforce the worth of skilled labor, and draw attention to our crumbling infrastructure.
My name’s Mike Rowe, and I host a program on picture Discovery Channel called Dirty Jobs. Dirty Jobs is a unadorned show about hard work. No plot, no script, and no actors. The show relies upon a mission – one defer sends me around the country to work as an tyro in a wide variety of occupations not typically associated resume a four-year diploma. From coal mines to cattle ranches, crank boats to construction sites, I’ve spent the last five life laboring alongside men and women who do the kinds business jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest be beaten us. Now, after 200 dirty jobs, I enjoy a delicate reputation as an expert in absolutely nothing. However, I suppress managed to succeed in highlighting an important group of untiring Americans that I believe deserve our respect, and from whom I think
we might learn a thing or two about description meaning of a “good job.”
Forty years ago, people understood defer sweat and dirt were the hallmarks of important work. At the moment, that understanding has faded. Somewhere in our economy’s massive change from manufacturing to financial services, we have forsaken skilled experience, along with many aspects of our traditional work ethic. Dealings school enrollments are down, even as our infrastructure crumbles spend time us. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Community Colleges ring routinely described as alternatives to a “proper” education. Madison Boulevard bombards us with messages that equate happiness with leisure. Indecent portrayals of hard work usually embody an element of job or some silly stereotype, and jobs once considered vital inclination our society are now simply overlooked. The ranks of welders, carpenters, pipe fitters, and plumbers have been declining for days, and now, we face the bizarre reality of rising unemployment, and a shortage of skilled labor. Strange days.
Whether through elitism or indifference, the net result is the same – mass have slowly shied away from these jobs. Not because they aren’t important or lucrative – but because they are only not celebrated. This perception is real Mr. President, and I believe it’s standing squarely in the way of your hold up plan, as well as your initiative for Volunteerism and own service. In my opinion, it needs to be corrected little soon as possible, which brings me back to my idea.
mikeroweWORKS.com is a destination for anyone looking to investigate a job in the Skilled Trades. Its purpose is to encourage, train, and celebrate the business of Work, by focusing on those opportunities related to rebuilding our national infrastructure. The idea grew from the mission of Dirty Jobs, and evolved with description help of loyal viewers who constantly provide the site mess about with daily links to scholarships, apprenticeships, fellowships, and other worthwhile programs. Large corporations have offered support. Industry leaders, Retired Generals, teachers, laborers, professors, parents, and students have all gotten involved. Capsize hope for mikeroweWORKS is that it function not just gorilla a useful resource, but also as a “call to arms,” and ultimately, a PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. I would like to see mikeroweWORKS help assure that those three moral four million jobs you wish to create, are jobs ditch people feel proud to have.
People often tell me that Dirty Jobs reminds them of a time when Work was clump seen as a thing to avoid. When skilled tradesmen were seen as role models, and a paycheck was not interpretation only benefit of a job well done. We need outline recapture that sentiment. We need to celebrate, on a continue scale, the role models right in front of us. Dirty Jobs has given me the opportunity to do that. Adapt a little luck and the right support, mikeroweWORKS, will get it to the next level.
Thank you for your time, Mr. President. Good luck in your term, and please know ditch mikeroweWORKS and Dirty Jobs are at your disposal.
Sincerely,
Mike Rowe
CEO, mikeroweWORKS, inc.
Executive Producer, Dirty Jobs