Mike Rowe - Full Speech at Opening Ceremony of SkillsUSA's 2013 national conference

my goodness there's so many of you dressed so similarly hello SkillsUSA I'm so glad let me just get this out of the way before we get started I'm so glad personally glad to finally be here with you I want to thank each and every one of you for coming from wherever you came from to be here for clapping and standing up and you did it y'all maybe tear up a little bit they're really really great to see you secondly let me apologize for being tardy I'm not late tonight but about eight years ago SkillsUSA invited me here and it's taken that long for me to actually get around to it I was just backstage now talking to some of the other guys in the red coats trying to figure out why it took so long for this to happen and I I started to make some notes I normally don't use notes at all but these excuses are valid and I just want to get this out of the way dirty jobs went on the air back in 2003 and sometime in 2004 the people that run this organization must have seen that's very sweet the people who run this organization called and said hey would you would you come and speak at our national convention I said you know I'd love to let me let me check the Dirty Jobs calendar and as luck would have it I had a previous engagement in Nevada anybody here from Nevada well what a crazy coincidence any of you know Bob combs the pig farmer outside of Las Vegas this guy in 2005 I would have been here but I had to go to Las Vegas Nevada to meet a guy named Bob and what Bob does is he changes look at me walking on my water that's very unprofessional what Bob does is he collects all the uneaten food from the casinos and he brings it back to his pig farm and in his backyard he built this giant contraption and in it he reduces the uneaten people food into this giant bowl of soup that he feeds to his pigs now his pigs grow at twice the normal rate he gets him to market twice as fast as they normally would plus he takes care of Las Vegas is recycling it smells so bad I can't even describe it but the reason I wasn't here in 2005 is because I was with a guy named Bob and I smelled like a pig next year when SkillsUSA called I said look I'm going to be there just let me check and as it turns out I I had a date in Ohio but this just wasn't any date this this was with a woman named Kristen Stanford I don't know if any of you saw this episode but in Ohio they do this snake research at a place called put-in-bay right and what Kristen does for a living is is kind of fascinating she she captures Lake Erie water snakes and she takes him back to her lab and then he makes him she makes him vomit and the way you make a snake vomit is you squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste right and the stuff that comes out of the snake's mouth well she analyzes it cause she's a scientist and she determines whether or not the snakes are still on the verge of being endangered based on their dietary patterns so the reason I wasn't here in 2006 was because I was covered with snake vomit with a girl named Kristen in Ohio next year next year I was sure I was going to be here it was 2007 I looked at the calendar and I was optimistic because it turns out Dirty Jobs is gonna be in Kansas anybody here from Kansas by any chance oh that's nice anybody ever been to Hutchinson Kansas there's a salt mine in Hutchinson Kansas runs from here all the way up toward the Great Lakes I spent a week in there one day back in back in whatever it was dirty jobs very very big big on farming big on mining we've been in gold mines copper mines been in bass salt mines coal mines bituminous and anthracite but in that particular day I was in a salt mine and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about about salt you know once upon a time salt was more valuable than gold anybody know that that's true it's the kind of worthless stuff you accumulate in your brain when you work for the Discovery Channel but you know back in the day they didn't have electricity they couldn't make ice salt was the thing that made civilization possible so I felt very good about being in a mine but unfortunately it kept me from being with you way back in 2007 but in 2008 man I was sure I was going to make it but then I got a call from Michigan is there anybody from Michigan where'd you get those cool lights fantastic they don't have lights like that on the Mackinac Bridge but that's where I went on that particular year and I spent I spent that day high high above the Straits of Mackinac painting the Mackinac Bridge green now it's a green bridge obviously but the thing is you never stop painting it they painted year-round 365 days a year and I walked all the way up the cable on the outside of the bridge just to change the light bulb at the very top and to make a long story short it was higher than I'd ever been at any given time and something may it torn loose down here and I made it I just made a terrible mess in my own wardrobe and I I couldn't be here with you then because I put my pants to be honestly you think I'm kidding it happened all the time on dirty jobs it just happened right now a little bit I'm kidding it almost never have scary as it was up there though on the Mackinac Bridge next year I was sure I was going to be here in fact I think I might have even committed but then things come up in TV and I had to go to Hawaii there's got to be somebody from Hawaii you see the episode where we were washing windows in Hawaii this is what I'm probably one of the most popular dirty jobs ever because once again the viewers got to see me squeal real high like a 10-pound baby girl trade from my life my friend Dino washed his windows over there and it's the only state in the Union where you can wash windows the old-fashioned way you sit on a you sit on a 2x4 Calma bosons chair right they don't use scaffolding and you rappel down the sides of these buildings with a squeegee in one hand and a rosary in the other and you just you wash windows and you just hope everything works the way it was supposed to work well more or less it did my cameraman got his hair caught in one of the repellers and nearly scalped him but he's okay now I couldn't be here back in 2009 because I was in the emergency room with my cameraman in Hawaii anyhow you get the idea in 2010 it was Nebraska who's in Nebraska I was so sure I was going to get here in 2010 but we finally had a job come through that I'd been wanting to do for years it's a simple job but it was asphalt paving and I always wanted to do this job because it's such an important part of keeping our infrastructure together but of course we wound up outside some little town in Nebraska I don't even know if it's on a map but we spent the day in 110 degree heat building a road my cameraman passed out from the heat that my sound guy passed out eventually I passed out in the asphalt so I couldn't be here in 2010 because I was passed out but in 2011 this was a heartbreaker because we very we almost booked our tickets to be here but I wound up in North Dakota anybody in North Dakota North Dakota just happened to be the very last dirty job we did in that in the US and we were up in Dickinson and here's a crazy thing about Dickinson North Dakota you know what the unemployment rate is and Dickinson right now it's like it's like negative five percent more people work in Dickinson than live in Dickinson they come from all over their work in the natural gas they're doing all kinds of things anyway I went up there to put up a cell phone tower and you guys know how it is up on the high plains one minute the sun's out you're up there with your TV crew you're shooting a show again you're 400 feet in the air in the next minute you're in the middle of some all the clouds are the lightning is everywhere anyhow I I couldn't be here in 2011 cuz I was getting electrocuted in Dickinson North Dakota last year I was very optimistic but then somebody at the network had a brilliant idea they said hey what would what would dirty jobs look like if you just went to another country I said it'd look a lot like it looks here only further away really but they said no you should go to Australia so ice alright I'll go to Australia nobody's here from Australia but that's where I was this month last year I was in an opal mine in Coober Pedy Australia this is a town you couldn't find on a map but that's where they mine all the opals in the world in the middle of the outback and it's a pretty exciting job and for me one more opportunity to go headfirst into a long skinny hole I didn't want to be in the first place but that happened this year finally Dirty Jobs has run its course we did 300 we've been all 50 states which brings me here in front of you if only I had something to say actually I've got quite a bit to say but I know it's a long evening and I'm not going to take a ton of time but I was standing backstage listening to everybody who spoke and so many things struck me it really is a struggle to know exactly how to address a crowd like this because unlike so much of the country you guys get it you guys already get it and for years now and for years to come I'll be out there with the same basic message and that simple message is all those jobs I just mentioned all the people that I met from the guys who work on the bridges to the guys who mined the salt to the pig farmers to the window washers you know they're doing pretty well the pig farmer in Vegas after that dirty jobs segment aired was offered 75 million dollars for his operation he's a tradesman he built that thing in his backyard the show got some publicity and people wanted to buy it mostly they wanted to buy it because his pigs make Vegas smell funny but the point is that man's a success that guy who washed his windows in Hawaii Dino he was homeless 12 years ago he was washing windows for food today he has 50 employees and a contract for every high-rise on the main island he's a tradesman the people I work with on dirty jobs year after year after year always seem to do better than people think they're continually surprised when I tell stories and I've got 300 of them I'm not going to tell them all to you in fact I'm not going to tell you any more about the show what I want to suggest is what's on my chest it says profoundly disconnected and if I were to really sum up people ask me all the time would you learn really Mike what did you learn 300 dirty jobs and what I learned is that well let me say like this the CEO of snap-on put it pretty well this is the greatest country on the face of the earth there's no doubt about it's not even close I'm biased I admit it but I'll tell you we've got some challenges and we have a problem and the problem isn't in this room the problem is in the way a big chunk of the country thinks about the definition of a good job this is tricky all right I'm going to take a minute and talk about it because I'm not an expert on any of this I just know what I've seen over the last eight or nine years and every state that I mentioned and the 42 that I didn't people tell me the same thing again and again they talk about how hard it is to find people who are willing to a learn a skill be master the skill and see work their butts off it's hard to find you guys I was in an airport I'm always in an airport but this happened about two years ago walked off the plane he's walking down the jetway guy came up to me dressed in a maintenance uniform he was doing something under the plane but he came on he said hey Mike I just got to stop you I just want to tell you that wife and I loved the show and we watched it with our kids every Tuesday night and it's really cool because we get to say to them see all the people that do all the different things that make our civilization work how cool is that that's very gratifying and I said thanks a lot I'm glad you watch and about halfway through the food court out in front of a Sbarro some other guy comes up to me that same age the first guy he's wearing a three-piece suit he looks prosperous he says hey Mike and I say yeah and he says this want to tell you love dirty jobs watch it with my wife and our kids every Tuesday I said oh good I'm glad to hear that he said it's so much fun you know the people are interesting but it's it's not to be able to say to our kids see what happens if you don't go to college now being a gentleman with impeccable manners I didn't bother to point out that he was his schmuck in fact what I did was what I did was I thanked him for watching my show because shows like Dirty Jobs simply reflect the thing that most viewers already believe it's virtually impossible to change somebody's mind with a TV show it's impossible to change their mind with a 30-second commercial so how do you change this guy's mind how did this guy start to think the way he thinks and how is it that we've wound up with a country divided over the definition of a good job look people talk about the differences between conservatives liberals Democrats and Republicans and red states and blue states and whatever I see the difference in this country between those two people the first guy who looked at a show like Dirty Jobs and saw a reflection of what matters to him and the second guy who saw it the way he saw so the way I see it is we need to have a conversation a big grown-up conversation and I'll tell you why you guys probably know a lot of this everybody knows unemployment's high right you guys read the headlines you're smart people you know about the skills gap too right it's getting wider there's three million jobs available right now there are 12 million people out of work and another 8 million people who aren't looking anymore and yet 3 million great jobs are available what's going on with that I was in Vegas again a couple months ago I loved it you guys in listening that's fantastic I ran into a woman who runs the local Caterpillar dealer down there we had an amazing conversation I told her what I was up to and she said Mikey you can't imagine we have over 20 positions available right now in heavy equipment repair all right some of these jobs start you know 40 50 60 grand and with a couple years of experience in the right training and certification which by the way they'll give you for free you can be making six figures they can't fill the jobs they can't fill them I hear this story not just from Caterpillar but companies all over the country are struggling to find people who are willing to learn a skill be really great at and work their butts off and I've been walking around trying to figure out how that happened how did so many people in our country become profoundly disconnected and I started to have this conversation with my buddies at cat and I'm going to tell you a very quick story because look the only stories that really matter are the ones that happen to you and you specifically this happened to me before most of you guys were born back when I was a senior in Baltimore Maryland in 1900 sama name-dropper sue me represent all right I like it all right in Baltimore's a rowdy town there's no doubt about it I was just a kid I was 17 and I was summoned to my guidance counselor's office mr. Dunbar was his name mr. Dunbar wanted to have a conversation with me about my future and he began to encourage me in a pretty persuasive way to go get a four-year degree now I got nothing against a four-year degree truth is I eventually got one but at the time I had some problems first of all I didn't have any money secondly I didn't know what I wanted to do and I was very honest with mr. Dunbar and I said based on the above criteria visa vie my lack of funds and my complete and total ambiguity I think it's best for me to go to a two-year school a Community College he said Mike he said Mike that is so below your potential you don't want to do that you want to get your degree and then the world will open up for you and I looked at him and he looked at me and then he pointed over his shoulder it's something I'm going to show you right now he pointed at a poster that he had hanging over his desk and this is what that poster was take a look at it we'll put it up on the screen if he can't see it but give it a good look here's a guy holding a degree and here's a guy holding a wrench and my guidance counselor says to me which one of these guys do you want to be now this is 1979 and then of course the caption and I have a caption really jumps out how's that for a bit of genius work smart not hard this was part of a college campaign back in 1979 and some of you have heard that expression in fact just by a quick round of applause who's heard work smart not hard before right now that was kind of a trick I just did I don't I don't want you to applaud the sentiment I just wanted to know it's not just me later on when you're bored not now but Google work smart not hard you'll see hundreds of pages it's become the title of books it's become the title of efficiency seminars whatever that means it's on schwag it's on book bags I got a theory I think that work smart not hard is more than a platitude I think it's more than a stupid cliche I think it's the worst advice in the world and I think I think we took it as a country I think the country's full of people right now who actually believes they can find success by working smart instead of working hard now 1979 college needed a PR campaign and this was a part of posters like that were hanging all over high schools all over the country it worked College enrollments went through the roof and did so for the next 30 or 40 years but some interesting things happened along the way vocational education classes yeah right when I was in high school auto shop wood shop metal shop they were in every high school they're not anymore guys you know that you have replaced vocational education skills USA has essentially become the connective tissue because as a society we stopped valuing what else happens well the years go by people line up to get into college because hey it's the best it's the best way to succeed right all you need is your four-year degree and everything is going to fall into place did that really happen I don't know right now there are a lot of people who have a four-year degree who can't find a job millions more have a four-year degree and are working in a field that had nothing to do with what they study but worst of all you've got a lot of people who paid a lot of money for a four-year degree who went into debt we have a trillion dollars of student loans on the books right now we're loaning money that we don't have to kids will never be able to pay it back in order to educate them for a job that no longer exists you know what that is that is profoundly disconnected say with me profoundly disconnected so I talked to my buddies in caterpillar about this and they say you know something ought to be done we got a we're doing what we can other companies are doing what they can so here's what I can do you know I'm a fan you know I love you guys you know you know that you get it and so many others don't so rather than tell you how fantastic you are and rather than congratulate you for all that you've done and all that you're going to do I decided to come here today to ask for your help I'm not going to blow any more sunshine up your red jackets okay I'm gonna ask you to help me do something when I ask you to help me change the worst advice in the world to something not so stupid something that looks like this now that's me by the way in the cap and gown and standing next to me is what I'll call a much more aspirational figure this guy he doesn't have any student loans this guy has a job this guy likes what he does this guy went through SkillsUSA and some kind of vocational training class and he got it this guy well he's educated he's just not skilled he's educated he's just not trained he doesn't know what to do he is confused by the industrial setting in which he finds himself this guy gets I really wonder what would happen if guidance counselor's like mr. Dunbar had a poster that said work smart and hard so this is a poster I created it with my buddies at cat the old posters down here in the lower left-hand corner and a very brief explanation of why I think it's the worst advice in the world so now we've got this poster what are we going to do with it I say we hang it up I say we hang it every I say I say that you guys look you guys are going to make a difference in your own life you're already present for that you're going to make a difference in your family's life you get it but I'm telling you the second guy I described to you in that airport he's out there she's out there millions and millions of Americans are out there and they don't understand the value that you bring to the table they don't understand the importance of the jobs that I featured on my show for nine years they are profoundly disconnected from a couple of fundamental truths I don't think I can close the skills gap I don't know if we can all do it but I do know it'll never ever happen unless we change the fundamental conversation that's going on right now to help me do that caterpillar and I came out with a new website surprise surprise it's called profoundly disconnected if you go there you can get one of these posters and if you do and if you're feeling brave I dare you I double dog dare you get it back to your high school hang it up in a hallway find a teacher who understands let them put it in their classroom find a guidance counselor let them hang it up take a picture of it and send it back to me and we'll make a collection of some advice that actually makes sense maybe a couple years from now people will Google work smart and hard and go up that's where that started not only do you guys get it not only do you have the talent not only do you have the will to make sure yourselves and for your families but I'm calling on you to go further go out into the world be an ambassador for work spread the kind of advice that actually matters it makes a difference have fun at what you do this is the greatest country in the world but I'm not biased at all when I tell you it's because of you guys you

Channel: SkillsUSA

Views: 192,086

Rating: 4.9169245 out of 5

Keywords: Mike Rowe, SkillsUSA, NLSC, nationals, SkillsUSA Championships, Opening Ceremony

Id: 8DDJA4v0bk0

Length: 28min 16sec (1696 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 08 2013