Candidate: Ron Helms

Ron Helms is a community leader, business owner, military veteran, and ordained clergy.  He also has extensive involvement in community engagement.  His passion for public service remains his driving success.  As a resident of Pensacola, Helms has given much of his time and energy to the business, political, and nonprofit landscapes.  He has decades of leadership in religious, community and nonprofit organizations.  He further holds membership in several engaging organizations including, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the non-partisan Institute for Women in Politics of Northwest Florida.  Helms is additionally a member of the Escambia-Pensacola Human Relations Commission and multiple other organizations.  

He is a former board member for Sunday's Child, a non-profit organization that awards grants to local organizations whose mission includes meeting community needs through diversity and inclusion.

He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, then went on to serve in the Navy, which took him to many countries around the world.  While serving on active duty and beyond, Ron attended multiple colleges, even aboard ships, to pursue studies in business, religious studies, and psychology.  He received special recognition for his military service in the Grenada Invasion in 1983.  Helms is a two-time honorably discharged military veteran from the United States Navy.

He was later ordained in 1996 in Richmond, Virginia.  Prior to relocating to Pensacola, Florida, in July 2005, from his last long term pastorate in Rochester, New York, after several years as senior pastor.  Rev. Helms further served as the Presiding Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches in Eastern Canadian and Northeast Districts (USA: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont; CANADA:  New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec).  As a collateral duty, Helms was a regional Judiciary Representative for most of this tenure.  He is the past Vice President for the Greater Rochester Community of Churches.

His last pastorate prior to ministry retirement was with Christ Fellowship Church of Pensacola, who celebrated his life of ordained ministry with a Reaffirmation of Ordination.  Ron is proud to call Pensacola home.