Biography

Steve Thomas Rooney is best known as the renovation guru who hosted several national home improvement TV shows. He's been doing this for most of his career. Currently, Steve is an active member of the Habitat for Humanity community, providing his skills and knowledge when creating housing for people in need of new homes.

Biography

Steve Thomas Rooney was born back in 1952. His family was residing in Pomona, a small town in California. The Rooney family was big, with Steve Thomas being first of the six children his parents had. The constant need to provide larger house for the growing family, but also provide additional funds for their support, made Thomas father look for additional income. His father was employed as a painter in a local paint company, but during the weekends worked as a carpenter and renovator. He used to buy old and, to some degree, ruined houses at a cheaper prices, restore them and move his family in, while selling their previous residential house. All the time Steve Thomas Rooney was around his father, helping him, while at the same time learning the techniques of carpeting and restoring old houses. In some extent this was a tradition in the Rooney family as his grandfather was also a do-it-yourself guy.

Education

After finishing high school, Steve Thomas Rooney enrolled for studying philosophy at The Evergreen State College and moved to Olympia, Washington. During his stay there, Steve implemented the skills he acquired while working with his father and when not learning for exams he would go and work as a painter and contractor. This provided him with enough funds to complete his education and graduate with bachelor degree in philosophy.

Sailing the Pacific

At the age of 22 Steve Thomas decided that traveling the world is a thing to do for him. He bought himself a sailboat and went on sailing across the Pacific. The road brought him to Micronesia where he stayed for several month. There Steve Thomas Rooney met Mau Piailug, at that time one of the last navigators and teachers of traditional, non-instrumental way-finding methods for open-ocean voyaging. Inspired by this technique, Steve became Mau's disciple and recorded his teachings. Later on he would publish a book titled The Last Navigator and created a film of the same name.

TV Host

Completing his travel across the Pacific, Steve Thomas Rooney came back to the mainland and started a career as a TV Host. He was interviewed and picked as a new host of This Old House where Steve replaced the previous host, Bob Vila. In the following 14 years Steve worked as a renovation guru and appeared on many television shows. In 1997 he was awarded in Daytime Emmy Award for being outstanding service show host. For the same award was nominated on 8 other occasions. Following his departure from the show, Steve Thomas Rooney worked as host of Renovation Nation for two seasons.

Habitat for Humanity

After finishing his career as television personality, Rooney affiliated with Habitat for Humanity. As a result of this cooperation, a countless number of home were built and thanks to these project thousands of people across the globe received an new home. Today he is an ambassador for the organization who became sixth-largest builder in the U.S. and also builds housing all over the world.