More Topics:
America's Most Exciting Bank: Berkshire Hills Bancorp
Posted February 9, 2012
We Recommend...
Michael P. Daly
By Igor Greenwald
Imagine learning that a perfectly boring neighbor is in fact a world-renowned chainsaw juggler. Or that the corner grocer is taking market share from Walmart (WMT) and plans an IPO.
You wouldn't be any more dumbfounded that I was recently to discover that I'm living on the home turf of America's Most Exciting Bank. Because I'm not based in New York, San Francisco, or even Charlotte.
This is Pittsfield, Mass., a onetime General Electric (GE) company town nestled among the Berkshire hills in the extreme western part of the state. Pittsfield was orphaned by GE decades ago, long enough for anger to fade into nostalgic regret, and for the municipal economy to finally emerge from an extended coma.
The GE legacy lives on in a plastics business now owned by Saudi Arabia's SABIC, and the associated cottage industry. GE also did defense work in town, and that mantle has been taken up by some 100 General Dynamics (GD) engineers developing electronics for the Navy. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
blog comments powered by