Paul Bates

Colonel Paul Bates is the Royal Artillery Regimental Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Artillery Charities.  In that capacity he serves as an ex-officio Trustee of Haig Housing.

Paul was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1992.  Since that time, he has completed two tours in Iraq and deployed twice with the United Nations in Cyprus in a peacekeeping role. His last deployment was to Afghanistan, in 2011-12 where he was embedded with the United States Marine Corps as the Deputy Operations Officer for 2 Marine Expeditionary Force. There, he was awarded the US Meritorious Service Medal.

His career has also included being a Commanding Officer, an instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Operations Officer in a UK Artillery Brigade, Operations Officer in NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, the officer in charge of recruiting for the Royal Artillery and the second-in-command of a Field Artillery Regiment.

Before his Divisional Director role, he was the Assistant Military Attaché in the British Embassy in Washington DC for 3 years. Most recently he was the UK’s Liaison Officer to NATO’s Strategic Headquarters based in the United States.

He has a Master of Arts in Defence Studies from King’s College London (KCL), a Batchelor of Engineering (with Honours) from the University of Salford in Manchester, England and a Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Higher Education also from KCL. Additionally, he has completed advance staff training at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.

An all-round sportsperson, he loves cricket and football and is a qualified coach in both. On advice from his knees, he now lives these sports vicariously through his sons. With any spare time, he likes to walk his dog, watch any sport, ski and spend time with his family.