Mr. Bates currently serves as President and CEO of WindStream Technologies, Inc. a new alternative energy company focused on wind energy in urban settings. The Company has created new technologies and products to serve municipal, light industry and residential customers. WindStream is engaged in pilot programs in California ongoing work for the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.

Prior to his joining WindStream, Mr. Bates was President of Avant Interactive, which created and patented an interactive video technology and licensed its technology to all the major television and cable networks, national and international advertisers and marketers, educational video providers and the US Military. The Avant technology was seen as a revolutionary step forward in the way video was used to sell and market products for both broadcast and online distribution. Under Mr. Bates’ guidance, Avant Interactive was a cash flow positive, profitable start-up company with over 20 employees and worldwide contracts.

Mr. Bates had spent the last 20 years in the Entertainment and Technology industries. Mr. Bates started out in the Music business producing and engineering for recording acts such as Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, as well as for all the major Music Labels. During this period, Mr. Bates realized the benefit of the personal computer in the production environment and was instrumental in using these “new” devices as an aid in the making of records and in film scoring and production. Mr. Bates worked on many of the first films that were scored electronically using computers as the heart of the system. Using his music and film production experience Mr. Bates went on to produce and co-produce many independent feature films, winning awards for his work from the American Film Institute, Georgia’s, “Peachtree Film Festival” and the “Hawaiian Film Festival”.

In the mid 90’s, after looking at the video game market, Mr. Bates realized a need for video games to have a more realistic audio presentation than what was presently available. Taking his knowledge and experience from the music and film businesses, Mr. Bates formed a successful start-up company, Extreme Audio Reality, which changed the way audio is handled and encoded in the video game industry. The company has been awarded a suite of patents surrounding its technology and licensed its technology to game developers worldwide.

Mr. Bates has a keen eye for spotting new trends in the marketplace and being able to quickly and cost effectively exploit these new opportunities. Mr. Bates lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.