Mr. Hayes heads the Argian Press, an Oneonta, New York printer of fine art books. In addition to his business, he curates museum exhibitions for the work of his father, the noted sculptor David Hayes.

He recently headed an advertising agency that bore his name in Miami, Florida. He has a quarter century of experience in advertising and public relations and has done work for American Express, Sunbeam, Johnnie Walker, Mr. Coffee, The French Consulate, and the Alliance Française.

He is an international specialist, previously affiliated with the Ogilvy Group’s Euramerica International. He also wrote radio commercials at Ogilvy & Mather Promotions in New York. Earlier, Mr. Hayes was the Assistant to the Chairman at the Souham Communication Group of New York, Paris, and Geneva.

On graduating from college, Mr. Hayes opened David Hayes Advertising in Manchester, Connecticut for three years before moving to New York City. While in college, he ran the Alexander Hamilton Private Press in Clinton, New York, and the Argian Press in Manchester, Connecticut. Each operation had a hand-fed Chandler & Price press with hand-set lead type.

In 1980, he hitchhiked 30,000 miles through 30 countries across three continents.

He is a graduate of Hamilton College, and also studied at the Institut d’Études Politiques, the Institut Britannique and the Sorbonne in Paris, and the Parsons School in New York.

Mr. Hayes serves on the boards of the Greater Oneonta Historical Society, the France Florida Foundation for the Arts and the Executive Service Corp. in Oneonta, New York where he is Vice Chair. Hayes also serves on the advisory board for NPR affiliate WUOW and the Coral Gables Cultural Affairs Council of Florida. He is a recent board member of the Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts, where he has sat on and chaired Decentralization Grant panels, and the Alliance Française in Miami. Mr. Hayes was invited by Mayor John Nader to help organize Oneonta’s recent Centennial Celebration, service for which he and every member of the Committee received Keys to the City. Hometown Oneonta subsequently named members of that committee as Citizens of the Year.

He is a commissioner on the City of Oneonta Board of Public Service and serves as a board member of the revitalized First Night Oneonta organization. He is a current and past volunteer for the City of the Hills arts festival and helped organize the annual Ice Cream Social with Oneonta World of Learning.

His name appears in the credits of two documentaries made for French television: Elian Gonzalez and The School of Capitalism, and he worked with France’s TV3 network covering the American 2000 Gore/Bush post election. He edited two books detailing French culture: The Other Shore and French in your Face, a French/English dictionary of slang. He is natively fluent in French, a 1977 Connecticut State Scholar and an eleven-gallon blood donor.

On Bastille Day of 2006 he was named a Chevalier of the National Order of Merit by decree of the President of France, a designation of knighthood.