Mike Rowe Net Worth – $36,000,000

mike rowe net worth Inset Photo Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region

Known for his work as a television host, pitchman, and narrator, Mike Rowe is also active on social media sites and hosts his own weekly podcast.

Mike Rowe is famous for his work on both the Discovery Channel and CNN, and he has narrated many different programs on the Science Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and the Discovery Channel.

Rowe has also appeared in Ford Motor commercials and hosts a Facebook series called “Returning the Favor.”

Rowe began his career in the mid-1980s as a host of a show in the Baltimore area. Since that time, he has achieved numerous successes and accolades for his work as a narrator, television host, TV personality, and pitchman. But is all that enough to build his net worth to an estimated $36,000,000?

Mike Rowe: Early Life

Mike Rowe was born on March 18, 1962, in Baltimore, Maryland. His parents, Jon and Peggy Rowe, both worked as teachers.

Rowe attended Overlea High School in Baltimore. In 1979, he became an Eagle Scout, and he graduated from high school in 1980.

His service project for becoming an Eagle Scout included him reading books to children at the Maryland School for the Blind. Mike points to the time that he spent reading to blind children as an experience that led him to be interested in writing and narrating in his professional life.

While he was in high school, he excelled in singing and theater under the tutelage of his choir director, Freddie King.

He later said that those experiences are what made him become interested in performing.

Following high school, Rowe attended Essex Community College. He then continued his higher education at Towson University, and he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in communication studies in 1985.

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Mike Rowe TV Host

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Mike Rowe hosted a Baltimore-area show called “Your New Home” for WJZ-TV. He continued as the show’s host for 15 years.

In the early 1990s, Rowe landed a host role on the QVC network after crashing the audition on a dare from one of his friends.

Rowe hosted “The Most” on the History Channel from the years 2001 to 2004.

From 2001 to 2005, he also hosted a show in San Francisco called “Evening Magazine” on KPIX-TV. “Evening Magazine” included a news segment called “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” which Rowe used to profile unpleasant jobs in various industries.

This later grew into the concept behind “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel, a series for which he is now famous for doing and one that is likely the biggest contributor to Mike Rowe’s net worth.

In 2012, Rowe hosted “How Booze Built America” for the Discovery Channel.

In the year 2014, he began hosting “Somebody’s Gotta Do It” on CNN. In this show, he highlights people who are passionate about what they do.

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 Mike Rowe Narrator

Mike Rowe has also worked extensively as a narrator in his professional career.

He has narrated numerous shows on the Discovery Channel, including “Deadliest Catch,” “American Chopper,” “American Hot Rod,” “Ghost Lab,” and “Wild Pacific.” 

He has also narrated the Syfy Channel’s “Ghost Hunters.” As of 2019, Rowe narrates “Wicked Tuna” for the National Geographic Channel.

Rowe was given the choice of being the host on “Deadliest Catch” or on “Dirty Jobs.”

The shows were scheduled to run back to back, and the Discovery Channel thought that it would be strange to have him host both programs given that the subject matter was so different from each other. He chose to host “Dirty Jobs” and to narrate “Deadliest Catch.”

Rowe was also the announcer on “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” from the years 2009 to 2012.

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Mike Rowe TV Star

Mike Rowe has made other TV appearances. He appeared on “American Dad” on Fox in 2007 as the voice of a meter maid on the show.

In 2008, he appeared in an episode of “Sesame Street” in which he challenged the characters to find the one who had the dirtiest job, which turned out to be Oscar the Grouch.

In 2012, Rowe appeared on “Last Man Standing,” playing the role of Jim Baxter, who is the brother of Tim Allen’s character.

Rowe was also a guest on the premiere episode of “This Old House” in 2017.

With all of his work, Rowe is most famous for his television roles hosting “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel as well as CNN’s “Somebody’s Gotta Do It.” These two shows helped him earn such a high net worth.

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Mike Rowe Pitchman

Mike Rowe has served as an ad pitchman for numerous companies over his career.

Starting in March 2007, Rowe was a pitchman in multiple Ford F-series truck commercials that were presented in a similar vein to his show “Dirty Jobs.” 

He appeared in Ford advertisements in the summer of 2009 and used the tagline, “Why Ford. Why Now.”

Rowe has also appeared in internet advertisements for the Motorola iDEN in 2010 and served as a pitchman for Lee Premium Select Jeans, for which he appeared on television while wearing “jeans that make my butt look good.”

He also became a spokesman for Caterpillar in 2010 and appeared with his parents in a commercial for Viva Towels in 2011.

In 2012, Rowe began working as a spokesperson for Novartis in its animal health division. They engaged in a campaign to educate people about the dangers of fleas.

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Mike Rowe Trade Activism

Mike Rowe is passionate about improving the conditions and opportunities for blue-collar workers.

On Labor Day in 2008, he launched a website called mikeroweWORKS.org, which is focused on the crumbling infrastructure in the U.S. as well as on the decline of blue-collar jobs. 

The site includes a trade resource center to provide information and resources to people who are interested in learning a trade.

In 2011, he started the “Trades Hub” on the website, which is an aggregator of blog articles for the construction and trades industries.

In September 2010, Mike Rowe teamed up with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers in a campaign named “I Make America.” 

Its goal is to encourage the government to invest in infrastructure and to reach export agreements in order to add more manufacturing jobs for the American people. Rowe testified about the issue before a Senate Committee in 2011.

Rowe even wrote to President Obama at the beginning of his first term and offered his help in promoting the 3 million shovel-ready jobs that the President had promised. Obama did not respond to his offer.

In 2012, he appeared with Mitt Romney to talk about his ideas. However, Romney made it clear that Rowe was not there to endorse him or to support his presidential campaign but was instead just wanting to share his ideas for how to help the working class in America.

Rowe’s website launched an initiative called “Profoundly Disconnected” in 2013. The initiative is focused on teaching young people that having a skill is more important than getting a diploma. He says that he wants people to work smart and hard. 

Rowe sees himself as a supporter of both white- and blue-collar workers. He says that he feels disconnected from both the Democrat and Republican parties because of the unfair treatment that he feels that workers and businesses at all levels have received.

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Mike Rowe Girlfriend, Wife & Kids

Despite his many successes and his high net worth, Mike Rowe has never married. He was in a relationship with Danielle Burgio for a time, but their relationship ended.

Rowe also does not have any children and is still single as of 2019.

Mike Rowe: Personal Life

mike rowe and his dog

Rowe lives in San Francisco, California. When he lived in Baltimore, he sang professionally with the Baltimore Opera.

In 2017, the Barbershop Harmony Society named him as an honorary life member at its annual conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

While he does not have a girlfriend or children, Rowe does have a dog. His dog is often featured in his Instagram posts, leading his pet to attain its own fame.

Mike Rowe: Rumors and Drone Spying Incident

A rumor that Mike Rowe was found dead in his home with a shotgun spread across the internet in October 2016. This led Rowe to post to his Facebook page the Mark Twain quote, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

According to an article in the Huffington Post, Mike Rowe heard a buzzing noise in his backyard and went outside with his shotgun to investigate.

Rowe stated that he realized that it was a drone that someone was operating to spy on him. He did not shoot the drone because he said that he was nude and that he didn’t want to appear to be crazy.

He said that he stopped himself from shooting the drone down because he was worried about any video that might subsequently appear on the internet of him being naked and shooting a drone out of the sky in the middle of San Francisco.

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Mike Rowe’s Net Worth

Mike Rowe’s net worth is nearly $36 million. He has been able to amass his wealth through his hard work and through his successes as a television host, narrator, pitchman, and star. 

He continues to be busy and to work, so his wealth will likely continue to grow even more.

Mike Rowe’s life has been all about hard work. He has worked diligently in every area of his career, and he encourages others to work hard through his trade activism and his various campaigns.

Mike is passionate about helping blue-collar workers and people in the trades to have greater access to jobs.

His ability to amass the net worth that he has can be attributed to the passionate approach he takes to his work.

If you want to build your own net worth like Mike through hard work, you’ll need some lucky breaks to amass a similar fortune.

Another way to grow your own nest-egg is to invest intelligently using the time-tested principles of dollar cost averaging and diversification.

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