Page 14 - BusinessWest March 2, 2026

GSB’s ‘southern headquarters’ in Easthampton is slated to
open within the next several weeks.
Greenfield >>Continued from page 12
transform the landmark, built in 1797 and home of the city’s public
library between 1909 and 2023, into a home for the bank’s trust
and wealth management, residential lending, and cash manage-
ment teams.
The latter is a $7 million investment that marks the bank’s latest
and boldest effort to “move south and east,” as Albero put it, mean-
ing into Hampden and Worcester counties, and beyond the bank’s
historic base in Franklin and Hampshire counties.
And as the bank continues this expansion east and south, the
‘community’ it serves has become much larger, noted both Albero
and Meshako, adding that GSB has responded accordingly, increas-
ing its charitable giving from $300,000 when Meshako started at
the bank a decade ago to $1.2 million last year, with that number
expected to move higher as the bank con-
tinues to grow.
“Tom and I both agree that, if the bank
does better, the communities can do bet-
ter,” Albero said. “When you move into a
community, you have to support that com-
munity and its nonprofits.”
For this issue and its focus on bank-
ing and financial services, BusinessWest
talked with Albero and Meshako about
the transition in leadership at GSB and
what’s in the broad business plan for this
157-year-old institution.
Purposeful Journey
Albero spent the bulk of his career in a
setting far removed from rural Greenfield — New York City.
He spent 26 years in senior roles in the financial controller
group at Morgan Stanley and also worked as a risk advisory consul-
tant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Desiring a change from the Big
Apple, he joined Salisbury Bank & Trust in Connecticut as CFO.
He did that for six years before Salisbury was acquired by NBT
Bank in 2023, prompting him to seek another significant career
change, this time in the mutual bank setting.
“Salisbury Bank was a community bank, but it was public,” he
noted. “We found that it was very hard to grow as a public bank, try-
ing to compete with much larger institutions, when you’re focused
on growth and earnings quarter over quarter.”
While Albero was chosen as GSB’s new CFO in early in 2023,
he stayed with Salisbury until the merger with NBT had been final-
ized before coming to Greenfield, a wait Meshako was willing to
endure.
“I waited nine months for Peter to finish that transaction
because I knew he was the person I wanted,” he recalled. “We
seemed to be on the same page, and I kind of knew he was the per-
son that would be taking my position when I retired; I knew he’d
“I wanted to work
at an institution
where we could
give back to
the community
instead of giving
to shareholders.”
14 MARCH 2, 2026
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