Tom's guest today is Mike Rowe, a Baltimore born and bred television personality, producer and podcaster. He’s also an author. His latest book shares the name of his popular podcast: The Way I Heard It.
The book is a clever and engaging admixture of essays in the style of the great radio raconteur Paul Harvey, juxtaposed with Mike’s chronicle and observations of his own life, collected in a career that has included singing classical opera, pitching everything from $35 KatSaks on QVC to Ford Trucks in national ad campaigns, and being the executive producer and host of the hit show Dirty Jobs, which ran on The Discovery Channel from 2003 to 2012.
Mike now hosts Somebody’s Gotta Do It, a kind of second-gen Dirty Jobs which started on CNN five years ago but jumped to TBN last year, and begins its second season there this Saturday night. Mike also produces the popular Facebook Watch series, Returning the Favor.
But wait, there's more! Mike Rowe is the founder and CEO of the “mikeroweWORKS” Foundation, which has granted millions of dollars of Work Ethic Scholarships to folks who are learning trades and skills that address critical shortages in the American workforce.
Also joining us in studio a bit later in the hour is Mike's mother, Peggy Rowe, who is the author of her own recent memoir, About My Mother: True Stories of a Horse-Crazy Daughter and Her Baseball-Obsessed Mother: A Memoir.
This conversation was live-streamed on WYPR's Facebook page. Watch the video here.
