Jerry Helling

The president and creative director of Bernhardt Design has created multiple platforms to invest in young American and international talent, helping to kick-start the careers of dozens of designers.

- Belinda Lanks

Jerry Helling didn’t intend to go into the furniture business. His plan was to parlay a master’s degree in motion-picture marketing into a career in the film industry. But after moving to Los Angeles in the mid-’80s and witnessing 60-year-old men hunched over copies of Daily Variety hunting for their big break, he gave up on the idea. “I was like, I can’t take this risk,” Helling says. “I have to get a real job.”

A headhunter sent him to interview for a position at Steel case, the office furniture company based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The opening had already been filled, but it gave Helling a plan. “I went back to the headhunter and said, ‘We’re going to find something in the furniture industry,’” he says. He learned the ropes at an L.A. furniture dealership, where he befriended a salesperson at Bernhardt Furniture Company, a family-owned manufacturer in Lenoir, North Carolina, who passed along the tip that the company owner, Anne Bernhardt, was looking for a national sales manager. “I just said as a joke, ‘Call and see if she wants to hire me,’” Helling recalls, flashing a disarming bright-white smile. “Two weeks later, I was moving to North Carolina. Anne Bernhardt took a chance on me.” And so he embarked on a career that would lead to the titles of president and creative director and the unofficial mantle of mentor.

Over the past decade, he has given dozens of emerging designers a chance to show their mettle, coaching them in the ins and outs of creating high-end furniture with mass appeal.