Cover Story

Dena Hall

Age 34. Vice President of Marketing and Community Relations, United Bank

Dena Hall describes efforts to meet the many demands of her job, while also making time to give back to the community, root on the UMass men’s hockey team (she and her husband, Eric, have season tickets), and walk the couple’s boxer, Crickett, as the quintessential balancing act.

And it’s one that will soon add another, very challenging dimension: she and Eric are expecting their first child in about four months.

But Hall has always displayed a real talent for multi-tasking (she majored in Journalism and minored in History at UMass) and also for setting and meeting goals. One she put down years ago was to be a senior officer at a major bank. She accomplished it at age 32 when she became vice president of Marketing and Community Relations for United Bank, the federally chartered stock bank based in West Springfield that recently reached a key industry benchmark — $1 billion in assets.

As the title would indicate, there are two distinct aspects to Hall’s duties, and both involve putting the bank’s best face forward. She handles the institution’s marketing budget, and also manages the Investor Relations program for United Bancorp, the holding corporation for the bank. She also serves as president of the United Bank Foundation, which currently awards more than $200,000 annually to area nonprofit agencies and community-based organizations.

Hall is quite familiar with many of them.

She is on the board of directors of the Business Friends of the Arts and the Westfield Boys and Girls Club, while her husband is on the board at the Greater Westfield YMCA, and she’s become involved with that organization. Hall is also a member of the board of directors of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce and the board of trustees of Noble Hospital, and is an active member of the Greater Springfield area Funder’s Forum.

With one key career goal already met, Hall jokes that she has a new one already in the formative stage: to retire in a fashion similar to her predecessor at United, Jack Briggs, now criss-crossing the country with his wife in an RV.

Fortunately for the Pioneer Valley and a host of area nonprofit groups to which she donates time and energy, that day is a ways off.