When she talks about her work at Bay State Savings Bank and in her community, Diane Giampa often uses the word “relationships.” It’s not surprising, given that’s the reason she got into community banking in the first place.
Giampa spent her career in human resources. She was working at a biomedical research facility in Waltham, when one day a recruiter called her up, saying a bank in Worcester was looking for an HR person. She said she took the job – along with a pay cut – because she wanted to be closer to her home and her children.
But Giampa soon found out that community banking was just the place for her.
While she was originally hired for human resources, Giampa also took over marketing when that person left the bank, and that’s turned into a permanent position for her.
“The nice thing is, you’re really only limited here by your ambition,” she said.
Today, Giampa gives back to her community through a variety of roles and organizations. She chairs the board of Girls Inc., which provides after-school programming for girls, and she is the vice chair on the board of the McAuley Nazareth Home, a residential facility for troubled boys.
“I feel very fortunate to help organizations that help children. I feel that my children have been very lucky to live lives that some kids can’t,” she says of that work.
Giampa also volunteers on the board of the Red Cross and serves as an officer on Bay State Savings Bank’s charitable foundation. In 2004, she established the bank’s “Champions for Children” initiative, which recognizes and supports local organizations that help youth in the community. Since then, the bank has raised more than $100,000 in charitable donations for local initiatives like a pre-concussive testing program for a junior hockey league and a program that trains assistant dogs for children with disabilities.
In nominating Giampa as a Community Bank Hero, Victoria Waterman, CEO of Girls Inc., wrote that “Diane has a position of great influence within the bank and uses it, not to advance her own agenda, but to help those around her to grow and succeed; to initiate positive changes within the bank and within the community.”
Giampa was humbled to be named a Community Bank Hero, but also said, “It’s so nice to be named, but I think I’m fortunate to work in an organization that allows me to use its resources and encourages its people to do all the things we do for the community. It really is kudos to the bank, more than just me personally.”
