Thomas Bates is a partner at Insight Strategic Partners where he provides strategic counsel to a range of clients engaging at all levels of government and politics and with the media and public.
He most recently was Special Counsel and Director of Government Affairs at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, one of the premier cancer research centers in the world, where he worked to create the state’s first-ever fund to support cancer research. Thomas is a former federal criminal prosecutor, having served as the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington. In his leadership role serving then-U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan, he also oversaw outreach, communications and policy-related efforts.
He previously was Vice President for Civic Engagement at Rock the Vote, where he led voter registration and education, issue advocacy, and research efforts for the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter registration organization. Prior to joining Rock the Vote, Thomas was co-founder and executive director of Democrats Work, a national organization that connected grassroots Democrats with community service projects and built a service-based approach to politics. He has worked on Capitol Hill as a top aide to a U.S. Representative David Price (NC), practiced law as a litigator at Cooley LLP in San Francisco, and served as a senior advisor on the re-election campaign of Governor Chris Gregoire in Washington.
He is a graduate of Duke University and the New York University School of Law. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for the Study of Social Policy and previously was a Commissioner on the Washington State Commission on National and Community Service (now called Serve Washington) and on the Board of Directors of Solid Ground.
He lives in Seattle with his proudly Canadian wife and two young children.