Page 24 - BusinessWest February 21, 2022

Brewster
Continued from page 22
to continuously review how she was living her life, with the goal of reaching higher — professionally, but also in the way she was using her considerable talents to help others who were less fortunate.
“That completely changed the course of my entire life; I have no idea where I would be had that not happened. She fought like hell, and ultimately lost the fight,” she said, adding that, long before her mother died, she gave up the dream of going to Montana, knowing she could not leave her father and brother at that critical time.
Brewster would eventually graduate from Smith College, majoring in government and anthropology, and found her way into the men’s clothing business. She started at Taylor Men, which had a store in Thornes Market, while she was at Smith, and would later be regional sales manager for seven stores in the Northeast before moving to Manhattan and working for a men’s wholesale apparel company and becoming what she called a “road warrior.”
Eventually, the road took her back to Northampton and where she started — sort of. Taylor Men in Thornes Marketplace had closed, and she began contemplating owning her own store on that site.
Later, she and partner Candice Connors would open Jackson & Connor, an entrepreneurial venture that would — with her already-significant involvement in the Greater Northampton community — earn Brewster her first honor
from BusinessWest: a 40 Under Forty plaque.
It would also help set the tone when it comes to how she would be “all in,” as she put it, with
both her career and her involvement in the community.
“I call that business
my ‘first child,’ because
I gave it my all,” she
said. “And Jackson &
Connor really helped
me understand purpose
and place of myself as a
human, as a community
member, and as a
business owner; it gave
me a clear direction of
how I wanted to be in
my community and in my
region, and how I wanted to use my resources, my influence, and my power to lead and have an impact. And from the epicenter, I’ve grown as a human, as a person, as an employee, as a member of a team.”
The Plot Thickens
Eight years after launching Jackson & Connor, the two partners sold the enterprise, which is still operating today, and commenced writing their own next chapters. Brewster segued
into consulting before Mark Grumoli, senior vice president and commercial loan officer at Greenfield Savings Bank, who years earlier had helped the partners secure funding to launch Jackson & Connor when he was with Florence Bank, convinced her to become the new vice president of Business Development.
She recalls friends and family members saying she wouldn’t last long in that role, but five years later, she’s still in it. That’s because it gives her
Tara Brewster works a United Way annual campaign event with Markus Jones, senior Major Gifts officer at Northfield Mount Hermon School.
what she desires most in a job — a situation where each day is different, a role where she can flex her entrepreneurial muscles, and a position that gives her the time and opportunity to be ‘out in the community,’ in every aspect of that phrase. And it has allowed her to take both her career and her civic endeavors to a bigger stage.
When asked what a typical day is like for
her, she said there is no such thing. Each day is different. But each one is filled with conversations — phone calls, e-mails, texts, and some old- fashioned, face-to-face meetings. And only some of them have to do with banking.
“They pertain to connection, encouragement, engagement, assistance, and more,” she
Brewster
Continued on page 53
Congratulations
Tara Brewster
on being named a 2022 Difference Maker!
.
Tara Brewster
GSB VP, Business Development
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