Bernard Lowell Helm

ROCKY MOUNT – Bernard Lowell Helm was born December 28, 1940 in New Britain, Connecticut, to the late William Frank Helm, Sr., and Alice Hazel Hall Helm. He died the morning of August 19, 2024 in Rocky Mount, NC after a years-long deterioration from Parkinsons and Alzheimer’s disease. He grew up primarily in the state of Maine, graduated high school at Hebron Academy in 1959, earned a B.S. from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in 1968, and built an extremely successful sales and marketing career across his life. He is survived by his wife of 42 years, Carla; only son, Josh; two daughters, Andria Helm and Damariscotta Griffith; brother, William F. Helm, II; nieces and nephew, Valerie Flynn, Karen Gallagher, Gretchen Barden and William F. Helm, III; as well as two grandchildren, Cameron & Connor Helm. While Bernard lived the last half of his life in Rocky Mount, NC, he spent the first half of his life living in 19 of the 50 United States. As a child, Bernard’s father changed jobs frequently trying to improve the family’s financial situation. They, therefore, moved often and lived in several cities and states in New England. As a traveling salesman in the 1970s, Bernard drove through every state capital and visited every capitol. He always said his favorite was the capitol building in Charleston, WV. If you’ve never seen it, it has a bright gold-leaf dome. Bernard was a smart child. He started kindergarten a year early, did well in school, and helped his mother with household cooking from a very early age. Apparently, however, he was also a “smaht” one. The following is an excerpt from an article in the Cranston Herald 1953 (Rhode Island) which described events from the town’s All-Hallows Eve celebration: It was on the Edgewood “reservation,” too, that Cranston police picked up a scantily clad Indian, aged 12, and escorted him to his family wigwam, lest he freeze to death or shock his neighbors to the same extent. The young brave wore moccasins, a head band, and the usual garment around the mid-section that allows the Indian such freedom of movement. This was Bernard’s first run-in with the law. A couple years later, Bernard hung up his loincloth in exchange for slacks, collared shirt, and a green tie. He attended Hebron Academy (Hebron, ME) for his junior and senior years of high school. Never an athlete, always the manager, Bernard managed both the ski- and track-and-field teams while a student there. He was also named the #1 French student in the state of Maine. Bernard’s Hebron Academy days were among his favorites. So much so that he ensured his daughters followed in his footsteps to attend Hebron 40 years later. He was honored as Hebron’s “Volunteer of the Year” in the mid-2000s and remained an active alumnus as long as his health allowed. This year would have marked his 65th homecoming reunion. Though Bernard originally went to college to be a civil engineer at Tufts University in Boston, his first semester proved that he and calculus were not friends, and his back-up plan became the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. This back-up plan was made possible by a career as a cook-turned-chef that started at age 14. His first job was as a short-order-cook in a diner. His mother, Alice, lied about his age to ensure he got the job. Bernard spent the next several years paying for his own high school and college educations working in resort hotels like The Inn at Shelburne Farms (Shelburne, VT) and The Colony Hotel (Kennebunkport, ME). He cooked for and served famous celebrities and politicians who spent their vacations there. One summer, when working as a hotel manager for the Rockefellers, Bernard was gifted a couple of paintings from them as a ‘thank you’ for kicking out the Kennedys who came into their hotel raucously drunk and inappropriately dressed. Bernard met his first wife, Jo, at Cornell and she, too, worked in the New England resorts over their college summers. Bernard and Jo arranged to get married one night in 1963 after their respective work shifts but, that particular summer, they worked at hotels in two different states. Bernard borrowed a car from his boss so that he and Jo could each drive two hours to meet “in the middle” in New Hampshire. They were married at 11 o’clock at night, spent a couple of hours together, and then each drove back to their jobs to be at work the next day. Joshua David was their only son, born ten years later. They were married 14 years. For reasons not worth recounting, Bernard walked out of the hospitality industry the day he graduated from Cornell, but he left the university with one of the best educations in management money could buy and hard work could hone. This manifested an extremely successful sales career from 1967 to 1979, according to a rediscovered resume typed up around 1980. He became the youngest division manager at the Alexander Hamilton Institute in the company’s 64-year history (circa 1973). He sold entire lines of furniture to Sears, Roebuck & Co for Belwood Industries, Inc. He was a National Sales Manager for Shepherd Products, Inc. by the time he was 35. The man was unapologetically intelligent, and he was exceptional at everything to which he put his mind. He met his second wife, Carla, in 1981. Bernard was recently hired as Director of Marketing at Ilco-Unican Corp; Carla had just earned a promotion into the key design department; they each moved into their new offices within the same week. The way the story goes, Bernard was walking through the halls introducing himself to everyone. He stopped by Carla’s office, introduced himself and, “He just wouldn’t stop talking. I was convinced I was going to get fired because of him keeping me from getting my work done!” They started dating, he proposed to her within two weeks of knowing her; she said, ‘yes,’ within another month; and the only reason it took them nine months to get married was because that’s how long it took Carla’s mother to plan the wedding. They were dedicated to each other for the rest of his life. The next few years were unstable for Bernard’s career, but his frustration in his work inspired the founding of Market Opportunity Research Enterprises (M.O.R.E.) and NC Page Turners, Inc. Starting in 1986, Bernard not only built his own business from the ground up, he created a new niche, which continues to be unique in the country, providing the most accurate market data available for the residential construction industry in the southeastern U.S. He helped home builders be more productive, cost-effective and, therefore, successful and profitable in their work. Though many of his accomplishments in those years are lost to poor record-keeping, he was acknowledged as the Business Advisory Council’s (Washington, D.C.) Businessman of the Year in 2005. Bernard’s company survives him after 38 years and continues to thrive thanks to his extraordinary and loyal employees. Bernard always wanted to grow M.O.R.E. to operate on a national level. He lamented at one point that something always came up in his family that needed attention whenever he was ready to make the leap, but he always chose his family over the business when he hit those forks in the road. Bernard was deeply dedicated to providing for his family and making sure his children had a strong education. Having sent his two daughters to boarding schools and colleges across the country and ocean, he drove and flew tens of thousands of miles over the years to make sure he saw as many soccer games, swim meets, lacrosse games, and opera performances as possible. With such a colorful life and varied list of experiences, Bernard was often asked later in life, “Is there anything you haven’t done?” Until the early 2000’s, his answer was “fly a plane,” then he started tackling that goal in his 60s. Because of the stringent health requirements to be a pilot, starting this late in life was extremely unusual, but he passed all his tests with flying colors. What became the favorite hobby of his life was inspired by his first plane ride as a child. Bernard was a life-long asthmatic. At 5 years old, when he was having a particularly rough time breathing, a doctor prescribed he be taken on a short plane ride to help open his lungs. Bernard instantly loved flying in part because of how good it felt to breathe more easily. He never forgot it and earned his private pilot’s license in 2005. If you knew Bernard at all, you know he opened or closed almost every conversation with a joke. During his career in market research every speech he ever made started with a story or joke to break the ice and get his audience laughing. Throughout his life he memorized, shared, collected, and filed-away hundreds, if not thousands, of jokes and cartoons in a record his family has yet to relocate in its entirety. So, in his final years, even though he was not always able to fully contribute, he loved listening to his family tell stories, joke around and “cut up” while he observed from his seat at the kitchen counter. Due to a combination of symptoms from Parkinson’s and macular degeneration, Bernard eventually kept his eyes closed most of the time, because “I feel like I can see the world better with them closed.” Because they knew he couldn’t see them with his eyes, Bernard’s family made sure his room was full of laughter the night he was passing. After he “assumed room temperature,”* they celebrated his life the following evening by reading through one of his NSFW joke-files. *Bernard used this expression regularly throughout his life to describe the state he is currently in. In honor of her father’s sense of humor, the author had to include it. A Special Gathering of Family and Friends to celebrate Bernard’s life will be on Saturday, September 7, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM at Wheeler & Woodlief Funeral Home and Cremation Services, 1130 N. Winstead Avenue, Rocky Mount, NC 27804. Arrangements entrusted to Wheeler & Woodlief Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 1130 N. Winstead Avenue, Rocky Mount, NC 27804. You may share memories and condolences with the family by visiting www.wheelerwoodlief.com.