JOHNSTOWN, Pennsylvania -- Alex Bambino, 21, is the son of two educators. He's busy working, welding a piece of material that will be used on a heavily armored military vehicle when finished. Despite two college-educated parents, who teach at the local Cambrian County schools, he wanted nothing to do with college following high school.
"I like working with my hands, being part of making something that is important, and I had no interest in starting my adult life in debt," he said.
So he went to Greater Johnstown Career and Technology Center, and he became so good at what he did that he was recognized at the SkillsUSA championship as a national competitor. He found work in his hometown at JWF Defense Systems, located in the old Bethlehem Steel plant along the Conemaugh River. And he became part of something bigger than himself in the machines he helped make.
Bambino is just the kind of young person Mike Rowe has been talking about for the past few years in his tireless effort to inspire young people to consider a different path after high school.
For 16 years, Rowe, host of "Dirty Jobs," has highlighted the purpose, skills and importance of the everyman. He has run a foundation that draws attention to the need our workforce has, and which our educators lack, in encouraging young people to look to the trades to keep our roads, bridges, cars and national security humming.
Rowe, in an interview with the Washington Examiner, said he started the mikeroweWORKS Foundation in 2008 in large part because of the country's workforce shortage in skilled labor and trade jobs.
Rowe said what they do at mikeroweWORKS is offer work ethic scholarships to men and women who want to "learn a skill that's in demand" and work.
"We have got $2.5 million dollars burning a hole in our metaphorical pockets," he explained, adding they could also use more money since interest this year is through the roof.
The current scholarship cycle launched on Feb. 12. To earn the scholarship, applicants need to enroll in an approved program, sign the S.W.E.A.T. Pledge, answer four questions about the S.W.E.A.T. (Skill & Work Ethic Aren't Taboo) Pledge, make a video, have two solid references from a teacher or boss, and verify school costs by April 17.
"Recruiting in the trade fields is a big problem for American companies today. We have millions of positions open and an untrained labor force to fill them," he said.
Rowe, fresh off the blunt and inspiring talk he gave at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, said young people like Bambino are exactly why he does what he does with his foundation, especially in light of the fact that the national deficit in skilled artisans affects national security.
Rowe said speaking at CPAC was a significant experience for him.
"The reason I went was because the foundation itself is really beginning to tip. The headlines of the day have so caught up to the message that I've been out there with for the last 16 years. I just really feel for the first time I can't afford to not fish where the fish are," he said.
He is not wrong. The culture has caught up with his message, so much so that Rowe says they have 10 times more people applying for the scholarship his foundation offers.
Rowe said it is like watching a tanker turn around when you talk about stigmas, stereotypes, myths and misperceptions.
"Those things don't get debunked overnight. It takes a long time. And, of course, work ethic, that's a very tricky thing to talk about because it's been a dog whistle for the last four years, and now it's not."
Rowe said that for the first time in all the years he has been doing this, he is seeing real enthusiasm around the trades.
"And also a real genuine kind of head nodding. It's begun to occupy sort of an equal and opposite place as to where CRT had us for so long. And so to see my S.W.E.A.T. pledge turned into a curriculum and to see that curriculum now in 60 schools, I can't imagine that could have happened five years ago," he said.
Rowe said he likes to check in on scholarship recipients from the past to see how their choices worked out. He recently called a young man, Johnny Goodson, who was 30 when he applied for a scholarship in 2017.
"He was the drummer in a rock 'n' roll band, and he really loved his life. But he wasn't making any money. He'd fallen in love, and he wanted to raise a family. So he fills out this application and sends it to me. He was always good with his hands, so he wanted to work on heavy equipment," Rowe explained.
Seven years later, Goodson is married, has his second child on the way, and is a level four tech responsible for inspecting all of John Deere's construction work.
"He's as high as you can go. He's an absolute rockstar, only this time a different kind of rockstar," Rowe said.
Rowe shared a photo of Goodson with his adorable son, Tony.
"This is a 37-year-old man who reinvented his life and is now prospering as the result of learning a trade."
The influx of new applicants this time marks the first time Rowe is not struggling to give the scholarship money away.
"Believe me, the standards are still there. You still have to jump through all the hoops, but I just can't believe that, as of today, we have 10 times the applicants that we had this week last year. I'm not doing anything different. But somebody has flipped a switch in our culture, and the headlines are starting to catch up with what I've been saying," said Rowe.
He's right about the shift in culture. People want to be part of this movement. You see it in TikTok accounts of plumbers, farmers and mechanics with insane numbers of followers and shares. It's the same on Instagram, X and Facebook.
Rowe stressed that he cannot speak for Gen Z as a cohort.
"But I can tell you that there's a sizable chunk of them who have gotten the memo, and the memo is, 'Hey, that debt you're looking at signing up for to go to Cornell or Yale or wherever, that's real.'"
In short, they are recognizing they are about to step in gum that's going to stick with them for a long time, said Rowe.
"Thanks in part to social media, where people in the trades really can post a fun, engaging video of what their work looks like," he added.
There are three legs to the post-high school education stool. The first is the basic perception and awareness that opportunities exist. The second is the cost of the alternative: $1.7 trillion in student debt, a number that has started to resonate. The third has something to do with the urgency.
Rowe stressed that young people like Bambino are needed desperately to maintain and build our maritime industrial base.
"There are 15,000 individual companies building our nuclear-powered subs, which now, by the way, are the pointy part of the stick. If things go sideways with Taiwan and our aircraft carriers are very vulnerable, we need these submarines," he said.
Rowe said companies such as BlueForge deliver those submarines and are desperate to hire skilled tradespeople in areas such as additive manufacturing, computer numerical control machining, welding and more.
"They literally say to me in a call, 'We're looking everywhere. Do you know where they are?' And I said, 'Actually, yeah, man, I know where they are. They're in the eighth grade.'
"I don't want to be an alarmist. However, that is why I'm taking a more pointed posture around this whole thing. Because now it's not just, 'Hey, how long do you want to wait for a plumber or an electrician?' Now it is a matter of national security," he said.
Here in Johnstown at JWF Defense Systems, Rowe would find his mecca -- there are scores of young people straight out of trade school or high school as part of the two-year, pay-while-you-work apprenticeship training.
The backdrop here would make Rowe's heart sing. Here they were, inside a massive steel mill that not that long ago was occupied by the skilled tradesmen who built this country, made a decent living and even helped supply materials to keep our country safe during conflicts.
In a way, Bambino is doing the same thing under the same roof. There are military Humvees in the assembly line here, along with other more sensitive things we were unable to discuss. And if Rowe gets his way, with a little help, he becomes not unlike George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life": a man who has had an effect far beyond what he'll ever fully realize.
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