Stephen L. Hightower isn't sure how CNBC will portray his "mud, sweat and tears" success story on "Blue Collar Millionaires" at 10 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25.
"I haven't seen it. I'll see it when everyone else does," says Hightower, president and CEO of Hightowers Petroleumand HP Energy. "I don't know what they're going to show."
A TV production company spent three days last summer in Middletown shooting Hightower at his Commerce Drive office near the I-75/Ohio 122 interchange; a company warehouse on Oxford State Road; and cooking out at home with his parents, Yudell and Elsie Hightower.
The show, narrated by country music star Tim McGraw, will explain how Hightower sold off the family janitorial service in the early 1980s to build an energy company employing 85. Hightower has offices in Cape Town, South Africa; Nigeria; New York; Baltimore and Miami.
"I started as a janitor. This year we'll do a half a billion dollars," says Hightower in CNBC's promotional video.The 1974 Middletown High School graduate will be one of three profiled in the half-hour show.
“Blue Collar Millionaires" features "ordinary people overcoming difficulties to transform their dirty jobs into 'filthy riches.' The new season (starting Jan. 4) celebrates America's most inspiring self-made successes: the working-class men and women who've managed to build fortunes with nothing but mud, sweat, and tears… and they're ready to share what they've learned," says the CNBC release.
The network says that "from humble beginnings, Stephen transformed a cornerstone family-owned janitorial business into one of the world's premiere energy solutions enterprises, Hightowers Petroleum Co. and HP Energy."
CNBC can be seen on Cincinnati Bell Fioptics channels 65 and 565; Spectrum (Time Warner) cable channels 40, 355, and 1355; DirecTV channel 355; Dish Network channels 208 and 9439; and AT&T U-verse channels 216 and 1216.
