Dan Moriarty

President and CEO, Monson Savings Bank

He’s Always Put the Emphasis on Team — and Teamwork

Dan Moriarty
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging

Dan Moriarty will be the first to acknowledge that he goes heavy on the sports terms and comparisons between the athletic field and the workplace, especially when it comes to the power of teamwork.

Make that really heavy.

But it’s understandable, and for many reasons.

Moriarty was a star athlete at Monson High School and later at Providence College, excelling at soccer. And he remains an athlete; he’s competed in several marathons and half-Ironmans (including the one in this region), as well as a full Ironman, which involves a 2.4-mile open-water swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run (a full marathon). A few years back, he bicycled some 60 miles between Monson Savings Bank’s seven locations, a trek he called the ‘Tour de Branches.’

In the small-world department, he and Mike Rouette, executive vice president and chief operating officer at MSB, were teammates on the Monson High soccer team. In fact, they both scored goals in a 2-1 win over Monument Mountain in a 1984 game that propelled the team to the regional finals.

So, Moriarty certainly comes from a sports background.

And with that experience, he knows the full value of teamwork and understands that it’s more than a catchphrase managers will use to get employees to pull in the same direction.

Indeed, Moriarty stresses that, whether on the athletic field or in the workplace, individuals can excel and score goals (either figuratively or literally), but teams win games and accomplish great things together.

“Mike and I will sometimes maybe overuse the analogies from sports, but the best teams are the ones that have the best teamwork, and not necessarily the best players,” he said, adding that this the mindset he works to instill from the top, while also acknowledging that he has some pretty good players.

In keeping with this mindset, when called to inform him that he had been named a Difference Maker for 2025, he said simply, “I’m honored, but I’d rather give it to the team here.”

It is this ability to promote teamwork, while fostering a philosophy of giving back and getting involved, that makes Moriarty worthy of this award.

“Dan exemplifies a culture of support and community giving,” said Dodie Carpentier, first vice president and Human Resources officer at MSB, who nominated Moriarty for the Difference Makers award. “Leading a community-focused bank, he has overseen contributions of approximately $230,000 to local nonprofits this year, with bank staff collectively volunteering around 1,700 hours of their time. Over the past five years, MSB has supported 420 organizations, donating more than $1 million, and collectively volunteering more than 10,500 hours of time.

“Dan himself sets a powerful example, dedicating approximately 200 hours annually to nonprofit work, embodying the bank’s commitment to community involvement,” she went on. “As a member of the bank’s community outreach and community reinvestment committees, he actively fosters initiatives that align with the needs of the local community, encouraging his team to engage deeply and give back. His leadership reflects a genuine dedication to building stronger, more supportive communities.”

Claire Clini, owner of Professional Paralegal Services and a long-time MSB board member, and, before that, a corporator, agreed.

“Mike and I will sometimes maybe overuse the analogies from sports, but the best teams are the ones that have the best teamwork, and not necessarily the best players.”

“He’s a caring, compassionate individual, and he’s perhaps not the stodgy model of a bank president of years ago,” she explained. “He’s very transparent with the board and other employees relative to discussing his ideas, and certainly with the board, he encourages conversation relative to the strategy and the broad mission of serving the local community and the customers. I find that open communication to be refreshing, interesting, and very positive given what’s going on in the world today.

Like his former Monson High soccer teammate (and now colleague at Monson Savings Bank) Mike Rouette, left, Dan Moriarty says he understands, and preaches, the importance of teamwork.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging

“He’s always willing to give his time and his talent with a lot of local organizations, including several nonprofits,” she went on. “And I think that’s a quality to be admired by others.”

These comments explain why Moriarty will invariably use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when talking about anything at the bank, why he’s looked upon as a mentor and role model, and why he’s a true Difference Maker.

Goal Oriented

You might say that sports — and community involvement — run in the family.

Indeed, the soccer field at Monson High, home to the Mustangs, is named in honor of Moriarty’s grandfather, Robert.

“He was a great educator and coach in Monson; he started sports in Monson, so he was well-respected in a small community,” he said. “He was a coach from the ’20s to the ’60s, and he was an inspiration because he gave everyone an opportunity to succeed, and with the students and athletes who needed help, he would spend more time with them; he was their first real mentor.”

Moriarty said he has tried to follow his grandfather’s — and parents’ — lead throughout his professional career, which started at the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand, now PWC, where he stayed a few years before coming to a realization.

“You have to let your team know that, even though there are people in positions that may have more responsibility, it’s still a team effort — no one’s better than anyone else here at the bank.”

“I felt like public accounting just wasn’t my style because you’d just go into a company for two or three weeks and do audit and consulting work with them, and then you would move on,” he explained. “You never really had a chance to help contribute to the business.”

His career took him to a few private companies, including Aetna and what was Rehab West, now HealthSouth, and then Unicare.

“But I kept feeling the same thing — that I wasn’t contributing to the overall success of an organization,” he went on, adding that, when he saw that Monson Savings Bank was looking for an account manager, he saw an opportunity to change that equation.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the job. Fortunately, the woman who did — who, coincidentally, worked with him at Unicare — became frustrated as the bank went through a conversion and decided to leave, letting Moriarty know the job was open again.

“I told her, ‘it doesn’t sound like a great role if you’re leaving.’ But it was my hometown, so I decided to take a chance,” he recalled.

Over the years, he moved up in the ranks, with titles ranging from controller to senior vice president and chief financial officer, and eventually, president in 2020, followed by president and CEO in 2021.

As he discussed how he manages, Moriarty described himself as a servant leader.

At Monson Savings Bank, Dan Moriarty has fostered a culture of teamwork and giving back.

“I’ll do anything from the menial task of cleaning the vestibule, blowing out leaves, to leading the executives on complex situations, loan opportunities, and market-expansion opportunities,” he said, adding that, in all cases, he tries to lead by example and set a tone.

Elaborating, he said he sets this tone by being transparent and empathetic while also helping employees with the challenging assignment of balancing work and life.

“I try to set reasonable goals and expectations, but also let them know that I support them in any way I can, without getting in their way of accomplishing what they want to do,” he said, crediting his wife with reminding him, early and often, that he needs to listen and be open to new ideas.

“And that’s an enjoyable part of my job,” he went on. “I work with tremendously intelligent people who have great ideas, which makes it a really good team environment here.”

He Knows the Score

Throughout his tenure, Moriarty has stressed community involvement, said those who know him, and he has set the tone personally.

Indeed, he has been involved with many nonprofits, causes, institutions, and industry groups. The long list includes his church, St. Patrick’s in Monson, and the Monson Free Library. It also includes several nonprofits, including Link to Libraries (LTL), I Found Light Against All Odds, and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, as well as Baystate Wing Hospital, the East of the River Five Town Chamber of Commerce, the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, and the Massachusetts Bankers Assoc. He was also recently asked to be on the board of the Healing Racism Institute of Pioneer Valley.

As he talked about them, he used ‘I’ and ‘we’ interchangeably, meaning there is often not a distinction between himself and the bank. That’s especially true with nonprofits such as LTL and I Found Light, where he plays a role himself, but the bank supports those causes as a company.

Moriarty said he says yes to requests to get involved whenever he can, and often, these yeses involve organizations focused on food insecurity, education and literacy, financial literacy, healthcare, and more.

And while giving back and fostering a culture where others do as well, he is always working to take the good players he has at the bank and create an ever-better, ever-stronger team.

When asked how he does that, he said there are many things that go into that assignment.

“You have to let your team know that, even though there are people in positions that may have more responsibility, it’s still a team effort — no one’s better than anyone else here at the bank,” he explained. “And you must stress that we all celebrate when we achieve things, but we all have to take responsibility for our actions and show appreciation, the best that we can, to the organization and the employees.

“You can’t have silos in your organization, where one department thinks it’s better than another department,” he went on. “You remove one department in the organization, and the organization is going to be weak.”

He put an exclamation point on his comments about teamwork and teammates by saying, “it’s a team effort. I couldn’t achieve any of this without the incredible team at Monson Savings Bank. Their unwavering dedication inspires me to strive for excellence. It’s their deep commitment to our communities and customers that keeps me focused and driven.”

When asked what he thinks about biking 56 miles, running 13 miles, and swimming just over a mile (a half-Ironman), Moriarty said his mind will wander in several directions.

“I think about a lot of things — family, friends, business — but then, when you get toward the end, it’s a soul-searching experience; you’re pretty close to God at that point.”

He also thinks about how to be a better manager and leader, and often comes back to his wife’s reminders about communicating and, especially, being a good listener.

He’s already good at that, but he’s committed to becoming better, which makes him a good teammate — yes, there’s that word again. And it’s just one of the things that makes him a Difference Maker.