Chelsea Depault

Vice President, Commercial and Municipal Lending, Greenfield Cooperative Bank: Age 36

Chelsea Depault

Chelsea Depault says she got into banking “by default.”

As she explains it, the mother of an old boyfriend took it upon herself to help her secure a better job by submitting an application for her at Greenfield Cooperative Bank to be a teller.

That was in 2007. She got the job and has been there ever since (except for a two-year stint with Community Action of Pioneer Valley), rising in the ranks and securing a progression of titles, from accounting clerk to credit analyst; commercial loan officer to vice president, Commercial Operations officer, assuming a wide range of duties along the way.

During COVID, for example, she played a key role in helping install a manual process to train internal staff in the handling of PPP loan applications.

Today, her role as vice president, Commercial and Municipal Lending involves everything from handling loans for commercial customers, most of them small-business owners, to staffing the bank’s booth at Frontier Regional High School’s Teen Reality Fair, providing lessons in financial literacy.

These and other assignments are quite rewarding, said Depault, who earned degrees at Greenfield Community College and then the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst and has also completed the prestigious ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking program at the University of Pennsylvania. She especially likes working with business owners and guiding them through what can be a difficult process.

“No two businesses are the same, and no two deals are the same,” she explained. “Being able to help small businesses and big businesses achieve their goals — and those goals are always changing — is my favorite part of this job.”

Active in the community, she serves Community Action Pioneer Valley, a nonprofit that assists low-income residents with everything from fuel assistance to SNAP benefits, as treasurer. She also serves on the Northfield Recreation Committee (as treasurer, but also soccer and basketball coach), the Franklin County Community Development Corp. loan committee, Franklin County Community Meals, the Greenfield Public Library Foundation, the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, and more.

While doing all that, she finds plenty of time for family — husband, Doug, three children, Mason, Brody, and Ellie, and two dogs — and a wide range of outdoor activities and sports.

“All that keeps me busy,” she said. “But it’s a good busy.”

—George O’Brien