Dr. John H. Helm Jr., the CEO and chairman of Rockhead Consulting, believes success only comes with hard work, dedication, and a willingness to always focus on the client and employees.

During his military career, John developed into a seasoned leader. He started out as an aviation technician and naval aircrew member. He stood out amongst his peers and was meritoriously promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He was accepted into the officer program, earning an Aerospace Engineering degree and a designation as a future pilot for the Marines.

As an officer, John excelled in flight school and earned a coveted F/A-18 pilot designation. John earned his flight qualifications and, in 2007, completed a tour in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star medal. John was then hand-picked to start the first Marine Aviation Training System Squadron (MATSS) in Iwakuni, Japan. John spent the last six years of his military career as the lead aviation planner for Joint Chiefs of Staff aviation training exercises in Southeast Asia. John authored multiple combined air operations guides and conducted multinational military operations training for multiple country military leaders throughout Southeast Asia. He showed his outstanding leadership skills and calmness under pressure when he earned the Meritorious Service Medal, leading a multinational search and rescue mission, which saved the lives of four Marine aviators who crashed into the side of a mountain in Thailand.

In 2008, John put together a long-term plan to transition out of the military and enter the civilian work sector. He started by completing back-to-back Master’s degrees, earning his MBA and then his Master’s in International Enterprise Management. He then began working on his Doctorate in Business Administration, completed his dissertation, and graduated in 2017. Thai and U.S. military leaders used his dissertation on the Cultural Barriers to Planning and Executing Bilateral Military Exercises in Thailand to advance the interoperability between the two nations.

After John retired from the military, he had a brief stint at the Maryland Public Service Commission. Then, he joined a Fortune 100 company, managing a portfolio of over $250M annually in capital improvement projects. John set up the distribution program management office for the company, creating several concepts and business practices. He developed an area plan concept that was briefed nationally at the IEEE annual conference, where John was a panel chair leading thegroupof four of the utility industries’ most remarkable minds. John then set Exelon records for installing the latest electric system reliability devices, leading to Pepco Holdings becoming one of the most reliable utility companies on the East Coast. John earned his Project and Program management certifications and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He envisioned starting his own company focused on client satisfaction, excellent service, and quality of life for his employees.

John was then recruited to start up a mid-Atlantic branch of a small consulting firm, where he quickly grew his branch into a $10M annual revenue source. After two years of learning the consulting side of the business and earning his Portfolio management certification, John started his firm, Rockhead Consulting, in 2022. John has since continued to grow while providing excellent customer service to our clients and assuring a quality work-life balance for all employees.

John has been featured three times in television interviews and has been a speaker at multiple conferences nationally. He is a decorated veteran, earning a Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medal. Being energetic and always passionate about his work, John’s hobbies are traveling with his daughter, watching her thrive at soccer, hunting, and occasionally losing a few golf balls. He is also the CEO of two sister up-and-coming coffee companies, Hit’Em Right Coffee and Hook’Em Right Coffee, which just landed a successful contract with a European distributor, assuring his coffee will be sold and served across Europe.

Gaining Accolades for Innovation

John knew he was successful in the Marine Corps when he could recruit 61,000 Iraqi citizens back into the armed forces while safely executing every recruiting event. “I traveled all over Iraq with both U.S. and Iraqi Colonels and Generals, guiding and mentoring them on ways to safely recruit citizens back into the armed forces. I recruited soldiers in nine of the ten Iraqi provinces, all while being shot at, mortared, and targeted,” explains John. “I felt like I successfully transitioned to become a corporate leader when I left the utility to start up a branch at a consulting firm.” He used his leadership skills and training to recruit a team of industry leaders quickly, and his strong relationships with industry leaders to earn their trust and confidence to allow them to perform over $10M in portfolio management and construction management contracts.

He created the Combine Air Operations Guide (CAOG) for multinational military aviation training. This was the guiding document for all training exercises’ flight operations and support ranges. Leaders from all participating nations created this document to ensure that each military unit achieves its training objectives while strengthening the bonds between nations. “I built lifelong relationships with military leaders in multiple countries. These leaders still appreciate how I helped them greatly improve the execution and efficiency of training events in their countries,” elucidates John.

While working at Exelon, John recognized that reliability, and capital project planning were always a step behind. It was always trying to prevent an outage that already happened. His focus was to stop chasing the smaller and less impactful events and start focusing on more significant areas that had a much bigger impact on reliability. John developed the Area Plan concept, a multiyear approach to solving reliability issues. Many of these plans spanned 3-5 years and over $60M. These Area Plans also allowed for better control and management of large money portfolios. Instead of trying to hit exact capital spend budgets for several small projects, the utility could now execute the plans as programs, moving funds between projects and better managing the annual spending. In the first three years of managing the area plans, he hit his yearly spending within 1%, 1%, and .17% of his budget.

Looking Towards a Bright Future

John’s goal for all of his employees is a work-life balance and professional development. He challenges his workers to earn qualifications to help his clients and help the employees along their career journeys. He strives to make process improvements for his clients, solving the problem at hand and turning over control of the work back to the client. He then seeks to assist the client in solving the following problem. This aligns with the quote on John’s signature block: “Don’t tell us why you can’t do it, tell us how you can!”

The plan for Rockhead Consulting is to continue to grow in the private and government sectors. Rockhead Consulting is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business. The company has earned a Project Manager of Choice (PMOC) designation at Exelon, which shows our dedication and value to the organization. The company has also applied for a GSA schedule to enable us to support multiple government agencies in executing their missions. With a healthy balance of veterans, experienced program managers and analysts, and young talents such as their data scientist and H.R. specialist, Rockhead Consulting is positioned to be able to meet the business analytics, project, program, and portfolio management, PMO services, and construction management needs of the clients now and in the future.

John has broadened his horizons by taking his unique vision and leadership skills to the coffee industry. He is the CEO of two exciting new coffee brands: Hit’Em Right Coffee and Hook’Em Right Coffee. These companies focus on selling very high-quality coffee, roasted and baggedin North Carolina. The branding is focused on the outdoor communities of hunting and fishing but transcends to all folks young and old. John recognized that the branding of the coffee will get you to try it and the great taste of the coffee will get you to keep buying it.