Get down and dirty with trades

Mike Rowe, of “Dirty Jobs” and “Somebody's Gotta Do It” reality TV show fame, wants to change the way people think about blue-collar work.

Rowe's latest stop on the mission is with Sarasota-based Direct Energy Services, the parent firm for One Hour Heating & Conditioning, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing and Mister Sparky electrical. Those brands, with a fast growing mix of corporate-owned and franchise locations across North America, had around $1 billion in revenues in 2014.

Rowe, under the new partnership announced April 10 at a convention in Las Vegas, will appear in TV commercials, radio ads and printed material alongside real technicians from each of the brands. He will bring his blunt, irreverent humor to the projects. “I like the mix of entrepreneurs and hands-on skilled labor,” with Direct Energy, Rowe tells Coffee Talk. “Whenever I can partner with a company with values like that, I try to do it.”

The home services brands, in return, will donate $100,000 in scholarships to the mikeroweWORKS Foundation over the next year. Individual franchisees will also work alongside Rowe to promote the skilled trades industry.

Rowe also wants to use the partnership to promote an ideal on his popular TV shows: A career in skilled labor can be both financially rewarding and intellectually stimulating.