James D. Bates currently serves as the Assistant Deputy Chief Information Officer for the Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office and is esteemed for his extensive expertise drawn from over 35 years in technical roles and more than 27 years in the information technology realm.
A proud U.S. Navy Veteran, Bates has contributed significantly across various sectors, including software design consulting, medical center IT management, auto manufacturing, and significant naval and defense medical record modernization projects. His professional journey is marked by notable achievements in system and software engineering, as well as network infrastructure design and deployment. He has played pivotal roles in diverse industries, from contributing to General Motors (GM) North American Operations’ infrastructure migrations to being instrumental in the design and national deployment of GM-Online operating systems. Furthermore, his contributions to the Navy included essential work on the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) Infrastructure, overseeing Active Directory design and implementation for over 425,000 users and 325,000 workstations across more than 2,500 sites globally.
In 2011, Bates transitioned to a governmental role with the Navy Program Executive Office-Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS) as an Assistant Program Manager for the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet/Next Generation Enterprise Network (NMCI/NGEN) Program Office, where he managed enterprise systems, end-user services, mobile services, and transition and deployment operations. His leadership and contributions were recognized with the Department of the Navy Acquisition Excellence Award. Advancing his impact in the field, in 2014, he became the pioneering Chief Engineer for the Department of Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) Program for the MHS GENESIS project, a role that earned him a Defense Health Agency Innovation award for his exceptional work from contract award through initial operational capability deployment. Bates’ contributions continued to excel as he took on the role of Chief Systems Engineer for the Electronic Health Record Modernization project for VA. He was promoted to the position of Senior Executive Service, Assistant Deputy Chief Information Officer in October 2023.
Bates is a distinguished alumnus of the State University of New York at Potsdam, where he graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, further solidifying his foundation in technology and leadership in IT modernization efforts.
