These George Mason alumni were driven to succeed with a premier NASCAR race team

You could say Dave Alpern, BA Speech Communication ’91, started at the bottom of the corporate ladder when he joined Joe Gibbs Racing. 

In 1993, Alpern landed an internship with the company. As he recalls, his office was a broom closet complete with an elementary school desk, an extension cord, and a lamp. 

But that didn’t put the brakes on his enthusiasm. 

“Being an intern [at Joe Gibbs Racing] was really special because I really had to earn it. I have this principle of delivering more value than you're paid, and that’s what I did,” said Alpern. 

Fast forward to today: the George Mason University alum is the president of the organization and recently made a cameo appearance in the Netflix series, NASCAR: Full Speed, which documents NASCAR teams as work as they race to win the NASCAR Cup Series. 

“Joe Gibbs Racing is one of the two most successful teams in NASCAR racing, so clearly if they do a show on the sport, we're going to be a part of it in some way.” 

Alpern may have had the inside track at the company as the best friend of Jason Dean “JD” Gibbs, the son of the company’s founder, Joe Gibbs, but he had to earn his way into every role. Alpern has held nearly every position in the front office and witnessed the company grow from a team of 18 employees to more than 500, including 50 engineers and an aviation department.  

Around the office Alpern was known as “the T-shirt guy” because of his dedicated work in merchandise and consumer products. 

Alpern was named president of the JGR in 2016 during the illness and eventual death of his friend JD in 2019. 

“When he got sick and passed away, I was named president and essentially took my best friend's job for his family's business, which was very difficult,” Alpern said. 

Now Alpern is also sharing some of the things he’s learned during his time with JGR. He’s written a book, Taking the Lead: Winning Business Principles That Fuel Joe Gibbs Racing, with all proceeds going toward the JD Gibbs Legacy Fund, in honor of his friend. 

While Alpern was navigating the growth of JGR, his colleague and fellow George Mason alum, Chris Helein, BA Speech Communication ’91, was following a parallel path. 

The summer before his senior year, Helein got a full-time internship with the Washington Commanders in the organization’s public relations department, where Joe Gibbs was the head coach and led the team to three Super Bowl victories. 

“Thankfully my professors were pretty understanding. That experience was my introduction into the world of PR and communications on that front. I really enjoy being part of an organization as opposed to the journalistic side,” said Helein, who followed Gibbs to JGR and has now been at the organization for 17 years. 

Helein, who is vice president of communications and partner activation at JGR, credits George Mason for giving him the tools he needed to begin his career. While on campus, he got involved in WGMU, the campus radio station, and Broadside, the student newspaper. 

“George Mason had a tremendous amount of assets for me from the location of the campus to the connections in different fields. It [provided] incredible opportunities regardless of the industry you want to work in,” said Helein.