Build Freedom Initiative Launches With Big Contract to Skilled Trades Champion

Michael Duffey, undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, and Michael Cadenazzi, assistant secretary of war for industrial base policy, presented television host Mike Rowe with a $10 million check today at the Pentagon to formally launch the Build Freedom Initiative.

Rowe is the CEO of mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which will use funds from the War Department to help young Americans prepare for work in skilled trades such as welding, plumbing and electrical work through scholarships.

That funding comes as part of a contract with the War Department's Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program in conjunction with the Build Freedom workforce development initiative.

The department, through the Build Freedom Initiative and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's arsenal of freedom effort, aims to achieve goals similar to those of mikeroweWORKS: strengthen the nation by getting more Americans into the skilled trade workforce.

For the War Department, that means rebuilding the defense industrial base, which includes getting more young Americans trained to help build and repair ships, aircraft and munitions.

"[Today] we're launching Build Freedom, which is already scaled to 70-plus programs, hundreds of millions of dollars of additional spending and incredible visibility across the country," Cadenazzi said. "We're not just building careers for today. ... We're talking about building careers for the future: [artificial intelligence]-proof, six-figure jobs, the ability to work across the country, and to really meet a demand for the future that is at the heart of everything we're trying to do with reindustrializing the country and scaling the industrial base for the future."

The challenge to rebuild the defense industrial base through programs like Build Freedom and mikeroweWORKS comes directly from the top, Duffey said.

"President [Donald J.] Trump and Secretary Hegseth recognize the need for us to not only maintain peace through strength, but peace through industrial strength, and so they've charged us with the mission of reinvigorating the industrial base, rebuilding the military and reindustrializing our manufacturing base," he said. "Build Freedom ... will inspire the next generation to take that career path to build that skill set that's essential to ensuring that we maintain that decisive battlefield advantage."

Rowe is the host of the television show "Dirty Jobs," which aired for 10 seasons and chronicled workers who did undesirable, sometimes disgusting, but important jobs, such as farming pigs, collecting roadkill or cleaning storm drains. He's been an advocate of filling gaps in the skilled trade workforce for more than a decade.

"When 'Dirty Jobs' was at its zenith [2008-2009], and our country was slipping into a recession, the unemployment rate in this country was creeping up to around 12%," Rowe said. "On 'Dirty Jobs,' everywhere we went, we saw help wanted signs. It was one of the most extraordinary disconnects that I'd ever seen. How could there be 2.5 million open positions in this country that didn't require a four-year degree - but training - where 12 million men and women weren't working? It seemed like somebody ought to be talking about the skills gap, or maybe the will gap."

Now, Rowe said, mikeroweWORKS focuses on reinvigorating involvement in the skilled trades.

"Not a day goes by where [we don't] get a call from some leader of some consequential industry in our country who is freaking out," he said. "They've done the math; they know that for every five tradespeople that retire, [only] two come in. It's been that way for nearly 12 years. The math is not on our side."

Rowe said that for decades now, young Americans have been discouraged from doing things other than pursuing a four-year degree - to shy away from work that doesn't involve college.

"[These] stigma, stereotypes, myths and misperceptions that we deal with every day, those can be confronted, those can be changed," he said. "This campaign is an attempt to do that. ... We're going to make a persuasive case; we're going to make a patriotic case, but we're also going to make a personal case. We're going to show people that they can support a family and revel in the joy of meaningful work by building freedom."

The $10 million the War Department gave to Rowe's foundation will provide scholarships to help young Americans get the training they need to enter the skilled trade workforce and fill gaps there.