Faculty Biography

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Don Bates

Academic Director, Strategic Public Relations Master's Degree and Public Relations Graduate Certificate

Don Bates is a well-known PR professional and PR educator.  He is an accredited member and Fellow of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).  He has taught undergraduate and graduate public relations and marketing courses at the New School for Social Research, the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), and most recently, for five years, in Columbia University’s Master’s degree program in Strategic Communications.  He also teaches professional writing workshops and writes and speaks widely on public relations issues. 

Don was a columnist for Public Relations Journal for many years and has written chapters on PR for several texts, including Media Now: Communications Media in the Information Age (Wadsworth) and the Encyclopedia of International Media ands Communications (Academic Press).  His editorials appear in Bulldog Reporter’s online ‘Daily Dog and in O’Dwyer’s PR Services. 

Don serves on the boards of the Institute for Public Relations (IPR), the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA-NY), and the W.B. Yeats Society of New York.  He has won many awards for his PR volunteer involvement, including several public service citations from PRSA and PRSA-NY.  He is the recipient of PRSA-NY’s Phil Dorf Award for mentoring and its first President’s Award for excellence in chapter service.

Don’s skills and abilities include strategic planning, sales and marketing, PR writing, public speaking, management training and organizational development.  He is well versed in electronic technology, including Web sites, blogs and podcasts.

For the past nine years, Don has been managing director of Media Distribution Services.  MDS is the nation's largest public relations production and distribution service.  Headquartered in New York City, it has affiliated offices in major U.S. markets.  Don was responsible for MDS advertising, marketing and public relations initiatives, along with “front end” development of new technology for the company's products and services.

Prior to joining MDS, Don was Executive Vice President and COO of Sumner Rider & Associates, a mid-size international PR firm with partner agencies in Europe, South America and the Far East.  In 1982 he founded his own PR firm, The Bates Company, Inc., which he ran for 12 years until he merged it with SR&A. Don's background encompasses telecommunications, aerospace, corporate television, information technology, philanthropy and organizational management. 

Before establishing his firm, Don held public relations positions with McDonnell Douglas, Western Electric, North American Rockwell, Planned Parenthood International, the United Nations Association and the Public Relations Society of America.  He was a newspaper reporter in greater Boston where he graduated with honors from Northeastern University, majoring in English and journalism.  He completed graduate courses in English literature at UCLA and the City College of New York.