Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop
From the Baltimore Opera to QVC shopping channel, executive producer, host and bestselling author Mike Rowe has had hundreds of jobs and relished his role as a chronic freelancer. He’s best known as the “dirtiest man on TV,” a title he earned on the hit TV series Dirty Jobs, where he traveled to all 50 states; completed 300 different jobs; and transformed cable television into a landscape of swamps, sewers and coal mines.
He has narrated hundreds of documentaries about space, nature, dinosaurs and how stuff works. As a public speaker, Fortune 500 companies routinely hire him to frighten employees with stories of maggot farmers and sheep castrators. He has also forged a handful of partnerships with iconic brands and filmed a boatload of Ford commercials.
Most recently, you can find Mike on Facebook’s groundbreaking series Returning the Favor, where he searches for remarkable people making a difference in their communities and helps give back to those who pay it forward with humor, heart and surprise.
You can listen to him on The Way I Heard It, America’s #1 short-form podcast of five-minute mysteries for the curious mind with a short attention span. Mike gives a different take on people and events that you thought you knew, from pop culture to politics, Hollywood to history. His bestselling book, The Way I Heard It, is a companion to his podcast that includes a collection of 35 mysteries that are part of a larger mosaic — a memoir full of recollections, sharp observations and behind-the-scene moments from Mike’s life and career. You can also watch him on the TV series Somebody’s Gotta Do It on TBN where Mike introduces viewers to innovators, do-gooders and entrepreneurs who march to the beat of a different drum.
Mike is also the CEO of the mikeroweWORKS foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity that works hard to debunk myths about the skilled trades and help close the skills gap. The foundation gives away a modest pile of free money to people getting trained for skilled jobs that are in demand through a variety of scholarship programs, including the Work Ethic Scholarship Program. Since its inception, the foundation has granted, or helped facilitate the granting of, more than $5 million in technical and vocational education for trade schools across the country.
In his spare time, Mike keeps a lively conversation with more than 5 million Facebook friends, where he talks about everything from the musings of his persnickety terrier named Freddy to the merits and pitfalls of blind patriotism.