David R. Helps, Jr.
David Helps is the Vice President of Education for the South Carolina PMI Midlands Chapter. He has over 18 years of IT experience in the state government sector. He is currently serving as a project manager in the Project Management Office at the SC Department of Education where he is assisting with the further growth and expansion of the PMO and has overseen several projects in infrastructure modernization and program area workflow management. Prior to SC Department of Education, he was an I.T. business analyst/project manager for the SC Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, and I.T. manager for the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina, and an applications analyst for the University Technology Services at University of South Carolina. He began his career as a mainframe programmer and shortly moved to web application development at the University of South Carolina. While at the University of South Carolina, he tuned his skills on requirements gathering and design. His career then took him to the SC Department of Disabilities and Special Needs as a business analyst, where he was able to work on his project management skills. Now, at the SC Department of Education, he is working to build up a PMO and expand the use of project management in multiple areas of the agency. He is a graduate of the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina. He holds a PMP certification with the Project Management Institute which he earned in 2010.
