Dr. Bass Graduated from Tuxedo Shaftesbury High School (Winnipeg) in 1977. He studied science at the University of Manitoba for two years and was then accepted into the University of Waterloo (Ontario) School of Optometry. He was granted his Doctorate in Optometry in 1983. Upon graduating he took on a position with the then New Brunswick Association of Optometrists Mobile Vision program whose purpose was to travel from school to school in the province examining grade one children. In the summer the program visited all the nursing homes in the province with the assistance of Optometry students. He went on to the position of program director and later chairperson of the board of directors of the program.

Since then, he has been active in several communities with practices in Perth-Andover, Plaster Rock, Woodstock, Florenceville-Bristol, and Grand Falls. He has served on the Board of Directors of The Hotel Dieu of Saint Joseph Hospital Board (Perth-Andover), the Victoria Glen Manor (Perth-Andover) and the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. He is a former member and past president of The Rotary Club of Perth-Andover and past president of the Florenceville Rotary Club. Currently, he is the past president of the New Brunswick Association of Optometrists, and one of two Optometrists on the Indigenous Services Canada Vision Care Working Group. He now operates a full-service Optometry clinic in Grand Falls. He also has gone to Guatemala on a humanitarian project, and most recent, has provided donated equipment to the HO Teaching hospital in Ghana for use in their vision care clinic.

On the personal side, he has four wonderful children and three beautiful granddaughters.