Official biography
Eric Chalmers Poston is a South Carolina-based nonprofit executive, former attorney, author, independent publisher, digital strategist, and music entrepreneur. He is the founder and executive director of The Poston Foundation and a co-founder and managing officer of Chakhead, LLC. He previously founded and managed the Columbia, South Carolina law firm Chalmers Poston, LLC.
Poston's work has included nonprofit administration, community-aid programs, legal practice, historical and genealogical publishing, digital identity development, independent music, and the creation of websites and online archives concerning South Carolina history and family heritage.
Poston earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Duke University, graduating magna cum laude. He later received a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law. Before entering private legal practice, Poston worked in public service, including a position as a staff assistant in the United States House of Representatives. He subsequently worked in legal research, litigation support, and private practice.
Poston founded Chalmers Poston, LLC, a Columbia-based law firm, in 2018. As the firm's managing partner, he was responsible for litigation strategy, contract analysis, client development, risk evaluation, financial administration, and internal operations. He ceased practicing law after the closure of Chalmers Poston, LLC in 2022. His subsequent work has focused primarily on nonprofit leadership, publishing, digital strategy, historical research, and media-related ventures.
In 2020, Poston founded The Poston Foundation, a South Carolina nonprofit organization concerned with direct aid, community outreach, charitable programming, and public-benefit initiatives. He serves as the organization's executive director. Through the Foundation, Poston established Carolina Cares, a direct-aid initiative serving individuals and families in the Columbia area. The program coordinated more than 50 volunteers and distributed food, clothing, hygiene products, household supplies, and other essential items to hundreds of recipients.
Poston co-founded Chakhead, LLC in 2018 as an independent entertainment, media, and creative-services company. As managing officer, he has directed administrative, promotional, branding, release-management, and digital-distribution activities. Poston has also recorded and released music under the professional name Ducati James, and his music-related work has included recording, production, publishing administration, distribution, promotional strategy, rights documentation, and the management of digital artist profiles.
Poston is the author and revising editor of books concerning South Carolina history, genealogy, family heritage, and regional historical preservation. His publishing process has included archival research, genealogical documentation, manuscript preparation, source reconciliation, image restoration, book design, metadata development, and print and digital distribution. He has published books through platforms including Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Google Books, and Google Play Books.
A substantial portion of Poston's research concerns the history of the Poston family in South Carolina and its relationship to the Pee Dee region. His work has included the compilation of family records, photographs, historical documents, newspaper material, cemetery records, property histories, and other archival sources. His digital historical projects include websites devoted to the Poston family, Poston, South Carolina, the Poston Preserve, and Lt. Col. John Fleetwood Moody.
Poston has developed and managed websites for nonprofit, historical, professional, publishing, cultural, and commercial projects. His work includes website architecture, search-engine optimization, structured data, Schema.org markup, content development, analytics, digital publishing, entity disambiguation, and the coordination of information across websites, social-media profiles, search engines, and artificial-intelligence platforms.
