Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy from TV, recently launched a new website called Trades Hub. He wants to direct his many fans with construction interest toward technical answers.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kL4omJVzkA

I was pleasantly surprised when the folks at the site requested Construction Knowledge to be one of the featured Friends on the sidebar. They will be using some of my posts and putting them out there to a much larger audience. So what’s not to like about that? TBW even acted a bit impressed, which is not a common event in my life.

Here’s the news release just received:

Mike Rowe Is No Expert, But He Knows Where to Find Them

After being an apprentice on nearly 300 dirty jobs, Mike Rowe is still no expert, but he sure knows where to find them. In 2008, Mike launched mikeroweWORKS, a website dedicated to championing the cause of hard workers and reinvigorating the skilled trades.  Since then, mrW has provided resources, news, and a community forum for folks from all kinds of trades. Now, with the launch of the Trades Hub, the goals of mrW can be expanded even further and across many more website portals.

Think of Trade Hubs as a “first cousin” to mrW. With this new platform, we’ll be able to pull together even more experts from such diverse trade fields as construction, plumbing, landscaping, manufacturing, machinery and HVAC just to name a few.

Here’s what you can look for at the Trades Hub:

More High Quality Content: The mrW Trades Hub will be pulling together all kinds of blogs, articles and news stories relating to the trades, by the trades and for the trades. They will be updated throughout the day.

One Stop Shop: With an easy to navigate site, users will be able to quickly source out those areas of interest that appeal to them on any given day. The links will take them right to where they want to go without sorting through all kinds of search engine pages for the right site.

Finding the Diamond in the Rough: When you consider the millions of new pages and posts uploaded across the internet everyday it’s hard to find the best representations for your interests. Trade Hubs takes internet searching to the next level by identifying those popular blog and websites that might normally go unnoticed if you’re not a regular subscriber.

Building Up the Trades Community: “The skills gap is a real concern that’s getting more worrisome every day.  Fewer skilled tradesmen in the workforce will affect us all.  Younger folks need to have a better understanding of how they can benefit from learning a trade, and parents need to encourage their kids to consider this worthwhile and important path.  mrW strives to reinvigorate the trades.  The mrW Trades Hub will help us in that effort.”