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Celebrating more than 70 years in the Tacoma community, Bates is an innovator. Our mission is to inspire, challenge and educate. Vocational training began in Tacoma on Sept. 4, 1940, in the basement of Hawthorne Elementary School. During the 1941-42 school year, the program became known as the Tacoma Vocational School. In 1944 the Tacoma School District hired L. H. (LaVerne Hazen) Bates as the school's director. The school's name was changed to the Tacoma Vocational-Technical Institute in 1947. Verne Bates retired from the director's position in 1969. The Tacoma School Board changed the Institute's name to the L. H. Bates Vocational Technical Institute in honor of Mr. Bates' service and dedication to the Institute and vocational education. In 1991, state legislation separated the state's vocational technical institutes from local school districts and merged them under the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. Today, Bates Technical College annually serves approximately 3,000 career training students and 10,000 more community members on three campuses in programs such as Continuing Education, Child Studies, High School, General Education and Basic Studies, Business & Management Training Center, and others. Bates is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), an institutional accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.