SPN Announces Annual Meeting Roe Award Dinner Speaker Mike Rowe to Speak on Changing the Way We Feel About Work
May 19, 2016—Today, State Policy Network announced Mike Rowe,Creator, Executive Producer, and Host of Somebody’s Gotta Do It and CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, will deliver the keynote talk at the 2016 Annual Meeting Roe Award Dinner on October 5, 2016. SPN will host the 24th Annual Meeting this year in Nashville, TN October 3-6.
“Mike Rowe demonstrates the entrepreneurial determination and promotes the do-it-yourself mindset that our founder, Tom Roe embodied,” said SPN President and CEO Tracie Sharp. “We are delighted that he will join us to explore ways in which those of us in policy can better understand and support jobs and address the widening skills gap.”
Mike Rowe has been called the “dirtiest man on TV,” a title he earned while hosting the hit TV series, Dirty Jobs, a show that paid tribute to hardworking people who make civilized life possible for the rest of us. On the show, Mike worked as a good-humored apprentice on more than 300 unique, unglamorous jobs— from boiler repairman to abandoned mine plugger. On his latest TV series, Somebody’s Gotta Do It, Mike introduces viewers to innovators, do-gooders, and entrepreneurs who march to the beat of a different drum. Mike is also well known for narrating documentaries and television shows about everything from lions of the Serengeti to fisherman in the Aleutian Islands.
As CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Mike spends a significant amount of time speaking about the country’s dysfunctional relationship with work, highlighting the widening skills gap, and challenging the persistent belief that a four-year degree is automatically the best path to take for the most people. The mikeroweWORKS Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, awards qualified people with a passion to learn a skill that is in demand. The Foundation has been instrumental in granting more than $3 million in technical and/or vocational education through its scholarship programs, including the Work Ethic Scholarship Program, for trade schools across the country.
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