Bill Gates Sr. Regents for the University of Washington, and is a co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which his son Bill and his daughter-in-law Melinda founded. He has served as a director for Costco Wholesale, a bulk retail corporation, since 2003. He is also a founding co-chair of the Pacific Health Summit. He has adopted the suffix "Sr." to distinguish himself from his more famous son. Gates is co-author, with Chuck Collins, of the book "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes", a defense of the policies promoted by the estate tax. He married Mary Maxwell Gates
Bill Gates Sr. 1946. He attended the University of Washington (UW) under the G.I. Bill, where he earned a B.A. in 1949 and a law degree in 1950. While at Washington he joined the Chi Psi Fraternity. He co-founded Shidler & King in 1964, which later became Preston Gates & Ellis LLP. He practiced with the firm until 1998, and the firm was merged into the firm now known as K&L Gates (Bill Gates Sr. is not affiliated with the firm). Gates also served on the board of Planned Parenthood. In 1998, Gates retired from PGE. He currently serves on the Board of