What’s a washing machine’s BIGGEST FEAR? Mike Rowe of course! With over 300 Dirty Jobs in 50 states, Mike Rowe has amassed the largest combination of filth, grime, 
stench and muck ever witnessed. How do you clean up a mess of epic Mike Rowe proportions? With the new Dirty Jobs Complete line of products of course!
Washing Machines Rejoice! Finally, there’s a cleaner strong enough to handle the toughest stains, even the Mike Rowe kind. Read More...
By comstudiesatedwards
The Human Side of Business – Communication Studies at KU Edwards Campus
The University of Kansas
Working in higher education, it’s only natural that we believe that advanced degrees are the best path to higher knowledge and higher career opportunities. But we love the fresh thinking in Mike Rowe’s 2011 presentation before the U.S. Senate about the importance of apprenticeships, manual labor, and skilled trades in the U.S.: Mike Rowe Speaks To Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee 
In his brief testimony, Rowe argues against our culture’s demotion of alternative forms of knowledge, meaning the kinds of understanding and training that can be gained outside of a college classroom through hands-on experience, vocational schools, and apprenticeships. And in Rowe’s 2008 TED talk, Rowe links trade labor to both individual happiness and the ongoing success of our nation and our infrastructure.
Such expectations can put a lot of pressure on just one sector of our economy, but Rowe’s story of his grandfather’s ability to fix anything is easily relatable. As Americans, we all have Jacks- and Janes-of-all-trades in our ancestry, and we still respect and admire these capable, creative innovators who can achieve whatever they set their hands to.
Rowe ends his speech by asking the Senate to support a PR campaign in favor of work, particularly in favor of the type of “dirty,” blue collar labor needed to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure. He hopes that by celebrating “an entire category of critical professions” that has been “marginalized,” America will be able to “close the skills gap” that faces us in the 21st century. And Rowe has put his energy where his mouth is: in 2008, he started mikeroweWORKS, a non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting the trades in the U.S.
Read the complete blog – HERE
On the April 12, 2012 episode of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Tim Allen shared his support for the working man and acknowledged one of his favorite guests on Last Man Standing ~ Mike Rowe. Tim said ‘Mike was their kind of guy’ and that he appreciates Mike’s message supporting those who do the jobs.
View the video clip & watch full episodes - HERE
*Last Man Standing airs on ABC Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m.
Read More...
Dirty Jobs products, all labeled “heavy duty,” include a stain remover, carpet cleaners, a spot and stain remover, a degreaser and hand sanitizers.
The New York Times
By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: April 9, 2012
For decades, fans have been able to buy merchandise inspired by their favorite television shows, like posters, T-shirts, records, books, jigsaw puzzles and dolls. But now a TV series has generated products that are meant to be practical rather than trinkets and knickknacks. Read More...
We knew Mike wielded some power but we had no idea how much!
How Mike Rowe Ruined Television
By Thonederdome
Halftime Hennessy
(Heads up the article contains profanity)
Have you flipped through the channels on your TV lately, looking for anything to watch that doesn’t have 18 year old cam whores singing in front of British people or a fat guy married to a hot woman that puts up with his endless bull and terrible day job for no good reason? You aren’t alone. In fact, TV stations realized this fact long ago with the game shows that are now a nostalgic memory, such as the “Gong Show”, “To Tell the Truth”, and “Legends of the Hidden Temple”. We were already well into the “reality show” phase of television before Mike Rowe came along in 2005. “Survivor” was, at the time, the biggest thing ever, and “American Idol” was already getting boring. However, Mike Rowe had a brilliant idea: What if, instead of taking normal people and putting them in non-normal settings and watching what happens (“Survivor” style) we just go and watch normal people do normal crap and see what happens? (Spoiler alert! IT’S NORMAL.)
In 2005, Discovery Channel stumbled upon a man named Mike Rowe, who was hosting a radio show in Baltimore, Maryland (insert “The Wire” reference) where he profiled individuals who had unpleasant jobs in the city. I really can’t imagine anyone have a pleasant job in Balmer, unless you’re Cal Ripken or Thomas Carcetti. However, the show was popular, and Rowe was definitely engaging as a host, and as it turns out, he ain’t too hard on the eyes, either.
So Discovery decided to make “Dirty Jobs”, a show based on his radio interviews, where travels the country and works a day in the life of some of the nastiest jobs you can imagine. (Fun fact! One of the jobs I worked in college was featured on the show. We handled human waste. It was indeed dirty.) Discovery had already been using Mike to narrate “American Choppers”, so they also decided that they would use Mike’s soothing, baritone voice to narrate one of their new shows, “The Deadliest Catch”, a documentary series about king crab fisherman in Alaska, a job with has the highest mortality rate (per employee) in the country. Both shows were huge successes, and made Mike, and Discovery, an load of cash.
Now, before I go blaming everything awful about TV now on Mike, let me say this. I like the guy, and I like Dirty Jobs and The Deadliest Catch. They are/were entertaining shows, and at the time, were very different than other shows that the tube was offering. Now, on to blaming this guy for everything.
The success of those shows led to a massive change in programming for every niche network out there. Discovery used to show documentaries narrated by scientists and show you parts of the world you would have never got to see. It was educational, and sometimes incredibly entertaining to the nerdy portion of America. Even their original programming up until this point was incredibly nerdy (Mythbusters, Shark Week.) THE SITUATION CHANGED after these two shows exploded in the ratings. Discovery went from “The thrill of Discovery” to “watch these guys do some shit.”
New programming started being developed for Discovery channel, and it included such amazing ideas like “American Loggers”, a show about a family of lumberjacks doing lumberjack shit, “Swamp Loggers”, a show about lumberjacks, BUT IN A SWAMP, and of course “Sons of Guns”, a show about a family that makes guns. THEY FRICKIN MAKE GUNS. But lo, Discovery, despite starting this trend with “American Chopper” and “Dirty Jobs”, is not the worst offender of the Mike Rowe TV Show Concept. Other stations jumped on this incredibly boring bandwagon very quickly, and en masse.
A&E network threw themselves behind an even more retarded craze, the “family reality show” that the Osborne’s made famous on MTV. Just so you know, there was a time A&E was considered high quality entertainment, showing original programming either based off classic literature of movies like “Napoleon”. Hell, A&E stands for “arts and entertainment”, which you would never have guessed based off their cavalcade of bullshit programming they run now. “Growing up Gotti”, “Gene Simmons: Family Jewels”, and the icing on the trashy people cake, “Dog: The Bounty Hunter.” Yes, A&E was already falling hard around 2002, but their sister network, “The History Channel”, was still critically loved and creating interesting, educational programming… right up until about 2006.
See, that was the year that History had been backhanded by Discovery in the ratings. So logically, it’s time to start filming people just doing their jobs. “Ice Road Truckers”, a show about truck drivers in the Arctic Circle or some other stupid shit, was their first swing at plate. Not content with an infield single, they then rolled out “aXMen”, which is not only a clever play on the “X-Men” characters name, it’s also THE THIRD GOD DAMN SHOW ABOUT LUMBERJACKS ON THIS SHORT LIST OF SHOWS. When did the fricking LUMBERJACK become something anyone wanted to know about? WHEN? IF THERE’S NOT A BIG BLUE OX INVOLVED, COUNT ME OUT, AMERICA. Finally, the network culminated all their stupidity on the big, bald shoulders of a fat group of scam artists with a pawn shop in Vegas, and “Pawn Stars” was born. PUN INTENDED, AMERICA. PUN DEFINITELY INTENDED.
Finally, there’s G4 TV, the saddest of all the networks to have fallen prey to Mike Rowe’s amazing ability to make anything entertaining. I’m just going to copy this from Wikipedia, because typing it out will make me cry, go into a rage and punch things, then cry again because I have sensitive knuckles.
On May 6, 2006, Variety, the entertainment-trade magazine, reported,
“Now, under the aegis of Comcast and new president Neal Tiles, G4 is evolving into a lifestyle channel, peppered with videogame culture, as opposed to wall-to-wall games.” ‘We’re going through a change. Guys like to play games, but not necessarily watch a bunch of shows with games on the screen,’ Tiles says. ‘So what we’re doing now is expanding G4 from a network solely defined by videogames to one inspired by them.”
So what does that mean, you ask? 20 HOUR BLOCKS OF “COPS”, “CHEATERS” AND “CAMPUS COPS.” I’m not making that last one up. There is literally a TV show following college rent-a-cops around as they tell kids to turn the music down and not throw frisbees in the direction of the President’s car. That is what G4 has become. Mike Rowe (and to an equal extent Olivia Munn) destroyed the ultimate nerd channel. G4 was place to go watch shows where video games were reviewed, rated, played, and discussed by real game nerds. It was the shit. Now it’s pure shit. And I blame you, Mike Rowe. I blame you for your voice, success, and everyman persona that made it look SO DAMN EASY to make a hit show.
So congratulations, Mike. I hope you’re comfortable up there in your ivory tower, the foundation of which was laid with the stony fragments of television. We are only a short time away from just watching people doing stupid shit like cleaning out storage bins or opening doors… what’s that? Oh that show already exists? Excuse me while I kill my TV with fire.
View the original article on how Mike made everything in television go south – HERE
My Centeral Jersey.com
Written by Patricia Mora, Director of The Institute at Middlesex County College
Next week I have a “Practical Electronics Technician” class graduating. This is a brief, eight-week, hands-on training program that I run on a regular basis. Many of the students in the class are unemployed and want to gain some new technical skills to re-enter the work force.
We do a small graduation ceremony for these students and I always invite a few potential employers to come and speak. Usually, I have to invite about 10 employers in order to get one to attend. However, this time, I invited 10 and five are coming. All five told me about their need for skilled tradesmen, mechanics and technicians. They can’t find people in the New Jersey work force with these skills. These particular employers are eager to talk to these technicians to see if they can maintain, repair and troubleshoot the machinery at their workplace. Read More...
Jennifer Rooney, Forbes Staff
Forbes
My Dirty Jobs cleaning products hit Walmart shelves March 1, and if Mike Rowe has his way, they’ll shake up a $55 billion category by being dirt’s friend in a field of foes.
The line is inspired by the Discovery Channel series, “Dirty Jobs With Mike Rowe”–and celebrates dirt as a vital component of hard work, getting things done and having fun–everything Rowe, a supporter of skilled trades, stands for. Read More...
