Melissa Helphingstine is Primera’s program reporting and client management expert with a passion for building relationships with her clients. “As soon as we’re able to truly understand our clients, that’s when we’re able to provide them with the tools and packaged solutions that address their most-pressing issues,” she explains. Melissa’s ability to provide our clients with tailored solutions is the result of more than 10 years of program management experience, including energy program design and bench-marking, portfolio balancing and optimization, reporting, environmental policy, sustainable solutions, contract procurement and negotiations; regulatory compliance, and quality assurance and control.

Melissa studied landscape architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before earning a masters degree in environmental policy at the University of Illinois at Springfield while working for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. It was there that she started to hone her consulting skill set while focusing on energy efficiency and sustainability issues. She left the IEPA in 2005 to pursue a successful program management career. Since joining Primera in 2014, she’s been instrumental in implementing and managing a Project Management Office (PMO) effort in support of a five-year, $1-billion annual spend for a local utility. Her oversight and ability to manage detailed reporting practices helps our clients ensure the entire portfolio meets its goals and metrics.

When she’s not delighting clients and managing programs, Melissa enjoys hiking, biking, practicing meditation (it’s work!) and is a self-proclaimed master pancake maker – “I’m the best pancake maker in my house,” she boasts. Her volunteer efforts include building a support network for foster parents and fundraising for her friend’s charitable organization.