A lot of people ask me why I cast Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, as the nation’s Chief Infrastructure Officer in my novel, The Nation We Knew. It’s a good question.

To summarize, The Nation We Knew is the story of national change that’s brought about by a singularly remarkable event. What would happen, the book asks, if the self-serving denizens of Washington (both sides, by the way) could set aside their ideological differences and put country ahead of party. What if, the new president asks, we could leave the donkeys and elephants outside to tear up the grass, and come together as responsible adults, intent on moving the country forward in every possible way in a bipartisan, common-sense fashion?

One of the ways she (yes, you heard me correctly, she) does that is by appointing a functional cabinet in which every member has deep expertise in the responsibility of their position. So: the person heading up defense has spent considerable time in the military. The person responsible for intelligence has been both a field operative and an administrator in one of the alphabet agencies. The person who owns education has actually served as a professional educator. And the person who owns infrastructure? They have hands-on experience in actually creating it and pulling together the kinds of people required to do so. And infrastructure? I’m not just talking about roads and bridges; I’m also talking about port facilities. Cybersecurity. Sustainable energy. Smart cities. Intelligent roadways. And, much more.

So, I got to thinking: what kind of expertise do we need to do that job? Well, clearly, we need people with degrees in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, architecture, and civil engineering. But we also need surveyors. Electricians. Designers. Heavy equipment operators. IT technicians. In other words, we need a combination of people with university degrees in complex fields, and we need people from the skilled trades. We can’t get the job done without both.

So, after a lot of thinking, it hit me like a brick in the head: Who better to be the nation’s Chief Infrastructure Officer than Mike Rowe? So, I asked his permission, and he graciously gave it. 

There’s another reason I placed him in that role. The United States is long overdue for a renaissance in the way we think about the skilled trades. Far too many people look at the trades as ‘the job you do if you can’t get a REAL job.’ Really? Without those skills and the people who know how to wield them, we wouldn’t enjoy the level of comfort that modern society affords us. Without electricians, plumbers, telecom technicians, heavy equipment operators, carpenters, framers, roofers, lots of medical and dental professionals, and myriad others, we wouldn’t have smart cities—in fact, we wouldn’t have cities. And by the way, have you ever had to call a plumber on a Sunday night because your pipes were frozen or your toilet wouldn’t work? Assuming you can even find one who has time to come out, you’re going to have to take out a second mortgage to pay the bill. And it’s not because they’re gouging the public—it’s because they’re making the salary that they’re worth, and it’s probably more than yours and mine combined.

There’s a lot more to the story in the book, so have a read and see for yourself. As it happens, even though he doesn’t think so, Mike Rowe is the perfect paradigm for a presidential cabinet member. We need more people like him in those jobs—you know, people who actually know something about whatever they’re responsible for.

I leave you with Putt’s Law: Technology is made up of two kinds of people: Those who manage that which they do not understand, and those who understand that which they do not manage.

#MikeRowe #TheNationWeKnew

Think about it.

The Nation We Knew on Amazon