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ortland Helmich has explored storytelling from all sides -- as a television host, reporter, producer, and writer and as a radio announcer, voice-over artist, media coach, and actress. Though she's worked in many genres and explores a variety of subjects, her interest in natural and alternative healing practices as well as the body-mind-spirit connection are often the through-lines running through her work.

Portland is the host and executive producer of What’s the Alternative?, a national talk show about alternative healing practices she created for Veria TV. She writes a blog about natural healing for the Veria website and is the creator, host, and producer of Kripalu Perspectives, a series of podcast interviews with leaders in the natural health and wellness movement who teach at the renowned Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health.

On PBS, Portland was a health reporter for The American Consumer and has produced for HealthWeek and Healing Quest. She was a medical producer for WCBV-TV, Boston's ABC affiliate, and an alternative medicine correspondent for Oxygen in its early days. For New Morning on the Hallmark Channel, Portland produced scores of uplifting stories about people who find the spiritual in everyday life, and she created, executive produced, and hosted Journeys Into Healing on Wisdom Television. She's also written for Body + Soul, Alternative Medicine, and Spa magazines.

Unrelated to health and wellness, Portland hosted Careers in New England on New England Cable News and co-hosted New Hampshire’s My TV Prime. She served as Barry Nolan’s fill-in host on Nitebeat, a live evening talk show covering all topics on the Comcast Network, and she did segment hosting for American Builder, a Comcast home improvement series that had her installing sinks, hanging wallpaper, and planting trees. She spent a few years hosting and producing segments for Rural Free Delivery, a magazine series about rural Vermont life that aired on Discovery Home and Leisure. Most recently, she was traveling the country field producing and writing segments for Dogs 101 and Cats 101 on Animal Planet; even more recently, she was writing for All On The Line, a reality series about the fashion industry on The Sundance Channel.

Portland's lent her voice to WGBH Radio in Boston, where she did news announcing during NPR programs like All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Marketplace. She's also hosted and voiced countless commercial and corporate videos. She began her career as an actress, studying at Circle-in-the-Square Theatre School at New York University. She's performed on stage, in commercials, films, and on soap operas like All My Children. She holds a BFA in acting from New York University and an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from St. Michael's College in Vermont.