Following the announcement of his appointment in 2017, architect William J. Bates was inaugurated as the 2019 President of the AIA last Friday, December 7. 

Bates recently retired from the Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, where he worked as the vice president of real estate and oversaw the restaurant growth division. He was the AIA’s 2018 vice president, and has been a member of the Institute's Board of Directors since 2011. 

Having plenty of leadership experience, his previous roles include serving as the president of AIA Pennsylvania in 1991 and 2010, vice president and chair of the AIA Board Community Committee from 2015-2016, and the president of the AIA Pittsburgh chapter in 1987. He has chaired boards for the Design Center Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, and the Green Building Alliance. To add to that, Bates was also an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon.

“During my tenure as your president, and thereafter, I will focus on helping to make our profession one that welcomes and nurtures the talent of everyone who has a passion for design and who dreams of making our built world, and by extension our society, better,” Bates said in a recent statement. “My dream is for architects to lead efforts to create a more fair, sustainable and peaceful world that embraces all, and disenfranchises none.”

“As a profession, we solve our clients’ problems by listening and synthesizing solutions. These are the skills that we need to apply internally to make our profession more prosperous and inclusive for the next generation,” Bates said in 2017.

Bates will serve as the AIA's 96th president through December 6, 2019. The AIA's current Board of Directors also includes Jane Frederick as the 2019 First Vice President, Patrick P. Panetta as 2018-19 Treasurer, and Emily Grandstaff-Rice as At-large Director.