Who is Jim Bates?

James W. Bates was born on February 17th, 1954 in Detroit, Michigan. He was a placenta previa baby that kept his mother in labor for three days. Against the odds of surviving such a birth he grew up as the son of two wonderful parents. Both of them had there own monumental obstacles that they were yet to overcome.Once upon them though they set a great example of what personal fortitude can achieve. This set the stage for who James may become.

Helen Catherine Murphy Bates was born July 10th, 1928 in Ferndale, Michigan to Frank and Doris Murphy. A brief description who Frank and Doris are is in order, although that really short changes their story because what made them who they are could fill volumes.Frank Murphy was kicked out of school in the fifth grade after placing the girl's hair in front of him in the inkwell. He then took his families experience as a glassblower and rode the rails ending up in Toronto where he later met his future wife Doris Lyman.

Fast forward to Detroit, Michigan where Mr. Murphy was working on the line of the Plymouth Lynch Rd. Assembly plant. The General foreman was asking Franks foreman "why is Murphy here after losing the sight in his eye to the accident earlier today" his foreman’s reply was "I dunno boss, all Murphy said to me was-"I'll be blind at home as well as at work, so you tell me. What is the point in staying home?" "So here you have it. This is one of the building blocks of who Bates is.

Mr. Frank Murphy went on for some decades as the superintendent of the Plymouth Lynch rd. assembly line, a man with a fourth grade education who had the respect of both the management and the unions alike, a man who knew everyone by their first name and a man that knew how to get things done. Frank once walked out for two weeks when a new assistant plant manager told him "Frank we have to get more production out of the men" this was stated by a man who in Franks words were "his only qualification is not from experience, but a piece of paper from college" After the plant workers began staging walkouts because Murphy was gone, Frank agreed to come back on the condition that only He ran the assembly line.

Franks wife, Doris knew how to get things done also. Having grown up with a Mother who was a Midwife in the slums of Toronto and a father who fed his family by picking up junk off the street curbs and reselling it. Doris used to, as a little girl go to the train yards and pick up coal to warm their little flat. Doris had to grow up fast as kids sometimes do. Her mother after having seen five of Doris's brothers and sisters die of starvation back in England and on the journey over to Canada. And after delivering hundreds of babies in Toronto in poverty, drank carbolic acid as her ticket out of the misery. Doris however chose to seek the silver lining in the storm clouds of life and hitched her wagon to Mr. Frank Murphy’s.

Mom used to tell of the day that Michigan’s Governor Frank Murphy was elected. In the midst of all the flowers and congratulatory telegrams that showed up at their home on St Louis Blvd. in Ferndale, Michigan. Someone showed up in a long black limousine, it was Governor Frank Murphy, she never forgot the snapshot in her mind of the two Frank Murphy’s shaking hands and the Governor thanking her father for all the votes he received by people actually thinking they were voting for Helens Father Grandfather.

Helen Catherine Murphy had the world in the palm of her hands after spending 13 years in school at St. James in Ferndale. Shortly after graduation she met a young sailor in Algonac by the name of Charles Thomas Bates, they were engaged soon after and eventually married. Helen was always very interested in writing, a lifelong skill she utilized as best as she could. She also was a deeply spiritual Woman who was devoted as a Third Order Dominican Sister.

After being married for six years, Helen went into the University of Michigan hospital in the spring of 1958 to be treated for uveitis an inflammation of the eye muscle. The good doctors decided to experiment on this beautiful young woman, a young mother with three children at home and a bright future ahead of her living out the American dream. Well, after injecting enough steroids of the rather new drugs Prednisone and Cortisone to drug an elephant. The good doctors were perplexed as to why this a woman was babbling and seeing spiders. So not (maybe?) knowing that they had created another case of steroid Psychosis, thereby ensuring Helen a long and painful struggle for her health and sanity. Her health and sanity in a world she loved dearly, one that included her family and God and all of her previous hopes and dreams.

They instead said, oh so she is schizophrenic. However drawing on her upbringing and a deep sense of faith and in the beauty of love, Helen went on in her periods of sanity between the relapses of psychosis that returned every couple of years to continue to write about education and children and now to write about her new found hobby, the struggle with sanity in a world that now seemed off kilter at times. She also gathered 160 some credit hours from college along with starting a Great Books Discussion Course amongst women in St Clair Countyin the early 1960's no less. The ladies would read books like Dante's Inferno and discuss there thoughts about the books. While Helen could add her own personal depth of understanding.

Charles Thomas Bates was born September 25th, 1926. Born to Frank and Cora Bates where he grew up in Algonac, Michigan. Charlie grew up a happy kid. Sometimes helping his dad working in the families Butcher shop in Fair Haven, Michigan. A real treat considering this was during the Great Depression. When he wasn't there he was caddying on the Golf Course that is now overgrown by the St John's Marsh. (kind of Southeast of Algonac). Charlie was on leave from the U.S. Navy when he met Helen Murphy. They were just a stones throw from the St Clair River where he had fired the boilers on the Great Lakes Freighters at age 16. He used to shovel the coal by hand into the boiler hoppers and had arms like Popeye. Now between wars he was falling in love with a beautiful woman.

This woman and him shared some great common ground. The both of them could swim the powerful waters of the St Clair river like fish. Helen having been taught by Japanese POW's on Walpole Island, Canada ( where Frank Murphy was also an honorary Indian Chief and where she spent her summers) to freestyle dive 40 feet down in the swift river currents. And Charlie, well he was like Tarzan anyway. And now he had met his Maureen O'Sullivan.Charlie would prove out his whole life to be the best at anything mechanical he attempted. And he attempted and accomplished a lot. Charlie was a Great lakes sailor, Also a U.S. Navy Veteran of both WWII and the Korean war, after which he worked for the Grand Trunk Railroad as a fireman on the steam engines and having been self taught he spent 40 years in Local 636 Pipefitters union being the best in the field of installation and operations of large HVAC and Pipefitting systems.Yep, Charlie was well respected, and by the people who were close to him especially, because although they did understand all of the dynamics of his wife’s illness they did know that he always did his best to stick by and love her while trying to provide for his children. Putting himself last in the scheme of things.

So who is James Bates? Part of Jim is always going to be the Six year old trying to make sense out of why the Police were hauling his mother away in a straightjacket. He will never forget that because it allowed him to strive for a depth of understanding of how to empower people to realize their full innate creative abilities. Jim knew from early on that if only given the respect and a chance that his Mother and others could excel in life. He had to quit high school at age 15 because of the difficulty of having to move four times in the same number of months due to his mothers recurring illness. But the next year Jim started college at age 16 when his Mother encouraged him to "just try it."

From that vantage he was able to learn more about the world and how to maybe help change it. He helped to start a free clinic in Pennsylvania and learned from that experience what a cooperative effort could accomplish.Jim tried on many hats while trying to find some synergy amongst people trying to bring some sanity and sustainable goodness to a troubled world.Jim was also honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy and for the next 32 years he has worked in various aspects of the Electrical industry, including railroad signaling, marine construction and engineering, 8 years in the auto plants, machine tool industry and in 1985 started Bates Electric Inc. and has successfully completed a varied assortment of jobs, usually in areas not ventured by most contractors.

While always having had an appreciation for Nature and life in all its manifestations he found a niche in utilizing his electrical experience by trying to help develop renewable energies. This had brought him to take part in the State of Michigan sponsored Wind Working Group for the past four years. While in those meetings he realized that there is an answer to the problem of water based wind energy development.

Having grown up in Algonac he has always had an affinity for the water and the energy that it has both from a spiritual and physical sense. Because of his unique experience in trying to understand interpersonal relationships. Ones that had been dramatically impacted by a system of traditional capital development that appeared to know the cost of everything and the true value of nothing, especially people and life in general. Jim strove to develop ways to make a change by helping to place value in the development of the Natural Capital given to us by our creator. There is immense latent talent held in all the seeds of life. He realized early on that the only way to make a sustainable change in this world is to strive to find other people who have the ability to place a value in respecting and developing all that natural energy. This has brought him to the point where he can help co-create the new company called Sustainable ENergy Delivery LLC and a project for the realization of this much valued natural capital.

This project is not at odds with traditional forms of development. Traditional development is at odds with life itself. It had its place and now it is time to move on to develop complementary and sustainable living systems. Nature has done so for millions of years. As we have seen the misappropriation of all that capital and the placement of money ahead of life has brought earths life systems to the edge of and in some cases to extinction. This was and is not necessary.

So Mr. Bates has invited you to take part in a new journey of discovery, a journey to simply step back and look at the world with new vision as that of a child.This journey already has on board all of the hopes and dreams of those that have come before us and of those yet unborn.
What can I do you might ask? Well, try asking for "Permission to come aboard" and let's begin this journey together.