Robert D. Helsby was born on August 2, 1918 in Denton, Maryland. His parents were George L. and Jennie Blanche Davis Helsby. He graduated from Gloversville (New York) High School in 1934, earned his BS from the State University College at Oswego in 1936, and earned an MA from the Ohio State University in 1948. He earned his EdD from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1958 and did additional graduate work at Penn State University and Indiana University. During World War II, he served as a captain in the US Navy. He was a Commanding Officer aboard PT boats and on the staff of the Commander of the Armed Service Forces of the Atlantic Fleet in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and Philippine Islands. He married Colene Fay Arney Helsby in 1945 and had five children.

Helsby was the Executive Deputy Industrial Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor and Executive Dean for Continuing Education at the State University of New York. He served as the first chair of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board from 1967-1977. Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed the board and other members included George H. Fowler, Joseph R. Crowley, and Jerome Lefkowitz. From 1977-1981 he was Director of the Public Employment Relations Services, a Carnegie Corporation of New York project to assist public employment labor relations boards and commissions throughout the United States. In 1981 he became a professor of Industrial Relations at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He researched and published materials on labor relations, collective bargaining, and New York's Taylor Law. The Taylor Law was a result of the Governor's Committee on Public Employee Relations Report issued in 1966 and named after the committee's chair, George W. Taylor.