Rich Bates

Chief Information Security Officer

Rich brings more than 30 years in Governance, Risk, and Compliance to ProKo's clients, across both federal and commercial sectors. He has spent his career designing and operationalizing cybersecurity programs that satisfy demanding regulators without grinding the business to a halt - most recently guiding an enterprise to a 99% maturity validation against NIST 800-171 controls in a third-party audit. At ProKo, he does what he has always done: translate technical and regulatory complexity into clear, executive-aligned decisions, so ProKo's staff and consultants can act with confidence rather than anxiety.

Before joining ProKo, Rich spent 13 years as CIO/Cybersecurity Program Manager for a federal services contractor supporting military and government communities, leading enterprise IT strategy, cloud modernization, and information assurance across hundreds of controls. Earlier, he co-founded and served as VP of Technical Operations for a highly secured commercial data hosting facility and worked across consulting and defense infrastructure programs — the kind of high-visibility work where "good enough" isn't. He holds an MS in Information Sciences and a BBA in Information Systems, both from George Washington University, and carries CRISC and GSLC certifications along with Cyber AB Registered Practitioner status (CMMC Certified Professional & Assessor in process).

Rich takes his work seriously and himself a good deal less so. Based in the Greater Nashville area, outside of work he serves as unofficial sous-chef and full-time taste-tester for his wife's cottage baking business, Better Ingredients Baking. The rest of his downtime goes to computer games and the occasional trip to the range to keep his aim honest. He also lists "Tricorder Code Tester" among his qualifications; ProKo has elected to trust him on it.

To learn more about Rich, see his LinkedIn profile.