One of America's leading executives in the area of faith and family entertainment, Downes grew up in Visalia, about 200 mi (320 km) north of Los Angeles, where most of the early Christian films he produced were shot.
In the early 1990s, after a three-year teaching stint in public education, Bobby spent much of the 90's leading teams of missionaries into more than 20 countries as an ambassador.
During the last two decades, Bobby has been involved in every aspect from script development, financing, production, marketing and distribution worldwide in all formats.
From January 2006 through the end of 2008, Bobby helped finance, develop the branding, collaborated on the writing and was core to bringing the #1 New York Times' best-selling novel The Shack to publication through its first million books sold.
The book has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and remained number one on the New York Times Bestseller list for more than 50 weeks.