Westfield Bank announces the promotion of Kelly Pignatare to first vice president, manager of retail banking and business and government deposit services.
Pignatare has over two decades of banking experience, in retail and business capacities.
Pignatare has served in many roles at Westfield Bank, most recently as a vice president and regional manager. In 2023, she graduated from the New England School for Financial Studies, completing a two-year program for banking professionals.
Pignatare serves as a board member for the Pathlight Advisory Board and the Pioneer Valley Conference for Women, where she was chosen as a panelist for the 2025 conference held earlier this year.
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MountainOne Insurance Agency announces the promotion of Donna Bishop of Lanesborough to senior vice president, commercial lines operations manager.
Bishop holds the Certified Risk Manager designation.
MountainOne has also promoted Jennifer Smith, of Peru, to senior personal lines account manager.
Senior personal lines account manager is a new leadership-level role.
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Gov. Maura T. Healey has appointment Kristen Smidy to the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Smidy is a former teacher, principal and superintendent with nearly 20 years of experience as an educator in Massachusetts. She serves as the Associate Director for Accreditation and School Improvement on the New England Association of Schools and Colleges Commission on Public Schools.
Smidy joined NEASC in the fall of 2025 after almost five years as superintendent for the Gateway Regional School District in Huntington, Massachusetts. She previously served as the principal of Hampshire Regional High School and began her career as a sixth and seventh grade social studies teacher at Duggan Middle School in Springfield.
Smidy has served on the Legislative Committee for the Massachusetts School Superintendents, the Connecticut Valley Superintendent Roundtable Executive Board, and the Massachusetts Inclusive Higher Education task force. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Boston University.
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Barney Garcia was elected as a student trustee for Westfield State University’s Board of Trustees for the 2025–2026 academic year.
Garcia is a senior pursuing a Bachelor of Science in political science with a concentration in public administration. He recently served as a Senate Fellow for state Sen. Adam Gomez. In 2023, he also completed a Local Commonwealth Municipal Finance Fellowship through the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s Division of Local Services.
Before transferring to Westfield, Garcia served a one-year term as the student trustee on Holyoke Community College’s Board of Trustees (2023–2024), where he also completed an associate degree in business administration.
Garcia is the co-founder and president of the Queer Straight Alliance at Westfield State. In addition, he is a commuter representative on the Student Government Association and previously served on the Commuter Council.
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Holyoke Community College recently welcomed Linda Chavers as the inaugural director of its new office of Restorative Practices and Mediation.
A published writer, educator, and consultant, Chavers has spent her career examining structures of institutional inequality and reimagining what justice can look like in the field of education.
Most recently, she has been working as a nonprofit leadership consultant and a national executive search consultant.
Prior to that, she spent 15 years in higher education, serving as co-director and English professor at The Clemente Course in the Humanities in Dorchester; resident dean, assistant dean, and lecturer at Harvard College; and assistant professor of instruction at Temple University in Philadelphia. She also was an instructor of English at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H.
Chavers holds a Ph.D. in African and African American Studies from Harvard University, a master’s degree in English from Harvard, and a bachelor’s degree in cultural studies from New York University.
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West Springfield native Caroline Morrissey has been named the first executive director of the Irish Cultural Center of Western New England in West Springfield.
Morrissey, a Colby College alumna, earned her master’s in international administration with a policy focus from the University of Denver. She spent nearly a decade working in post-conflict zones across Africa, most recently serving with President Jimmy Carter’s The Carter Center in Liberia, before returning to Western Massachusetts just before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since returning, she has been an active member of the ICCWNE’s Events Committee, where she founded the new Book Club that she continues to moderate monthly. In summer 2024, she took on a larger leadership role by joining the board of directors.
