>>21627996So this nonprofit that he has, mikeroweWORKS, unsurprisingly, is primarily funded by companies that directly benefit from his promotion of things like trade schools. So notable backers include the Universal Technical Institutes, that’s a for-profit trade school company that’s been investigated by state and federal agencies for predatory lending practices. This is particularly ironic, given Mike Rowe’s own avowed hatred of student debt but you know hey, ideology. So moving on, also his nonprofit is funded by Federal-Mogul Motor Parts, that’s an auto-parts manufacturer controlled by none other than Carl Icahn. The Clockwork Home Services, which sells franchises for a number of plumbing and HVAC and electrician companies that’s backed by Centrica, which is a British multinational energy conglomerate. And another one of his nonprofit’s major funders is the Distribution Contractors Association, a trade group for gas pipeline contractors that has lobbied in favor of repealing environmental regulations that limit pipeline construction.
So, in the year 2012, he received about $50,000 from Charles Koch. This led to further injections of cash of about $300,000, all told as of 2016, he’s received about $350,000 from Charles Koch and the Charles Koch Foundation. It’s at this point that he became a little bit more overtly political in September of 2012. During the election he went to a campaign stop in Ohio with Mitt Romney.
