From left, Beacon Bank’ s Matthew Emprimo, commercial leader for Berkshire County and Vermont; Jim Morris, regional president for Berkshire County, Upstate New York, and Vermont; and Lori Kiely, director of foundation and charitable giving, as well as the Berkshire County regional leader.
and how far from the customer the decision is made. Beacon can now comfortably put up to roughly $ 100 million into a single client relationship— far beyond what most projects in the Berkshires will ever require, but critical if the bank wants to keep serious developers and mid‐sized companies in its orbit.
At the same time, he has pushed to shorten the distance between a Berkshire County borrower and the people with the power to approve or decline. Morris says commercial term sheets that once took weeks now go out in days.
“ We’ ve delivered term sheets as fast as a day to a week, which is really fast in the commercial world,” Morris says.
Emprimo was a longtime commercial banking leader with Berkshire Bank prior to its rebranding and merger. Previously, he typically generated about $ 20 million a year in new commercial business. This year, he expects to double or even triple that, with a pipeline he estimates at $ 60 – 65 million, all in Berkshire County and southern Vermont. He points to a more pro‐business credit policy and the fact that loan committees increasingly sit in Pittsfield, with colleagues who know the properties and the people by name.
That’ s exactly the behavior Perrault wants from Beacon’ s structure.“ In Pittsfield, we’ re going to look for and make every good loan that we possibly can,” he says,“ and we’ ve got people dedicated to doing that.” The Berkshires is not being stripped of capital to feed the city; it is the crucial funding engine for a network of carefully chosen growth markets.
“ I actually feel like even though the bank doubled in size, our world actually shrunk,” says Emprimo.
Under Beacon, Perrault has expanded the reach of three specialized tools. First, there is a national SBA lending arm( 44 Business Capital, a Division of Beacon Bank & Trust), based in Pennsylvania, that can support small and startup businesses in regions such as western Massachusetts that might not clear traditional underwriting.
Second, there are specialized teams handling asset-based lending across Massachusetts that fund growing or stressed operations using working capital assets rather than hard real estate. Asset-based lending provides businesses with cash loans based on the value of their short-term assets, such as unpaid customer invoices and current inventory. Instead of requiring physical buildings or real estate as collateral, the bank uses these moving parts of the business to secure the financing. This gives fast-growing or financially stressed companies quick access to working capital when traditional business loans are unavailable.
Lastly, Beacon has a tax‐credit investing unit that structures historic and low‐income housing deals, often stepping in as an equity partner. Downtown Pittsfield is one of Perrault’ s proving grounds. Beacon Bank is financing— and in some cases co‐investing in— a cluster of historic rehabs that are transforming older buildings into apartments and mixed‐use spaces. Working alongside developers like Allegrone Companies, the bank doesn’ t just provide loans; it buys tax credits, effectively becoming a limited partner for about five years, according to Morris.
The bank pays less than a dollar today for each future dollar of tax credit, then realizes the full value over time. That spread covers Beacon’ s cost of capital and generates a modest profit. For the developer, the equity makes borderline projects viable. For the city, it means fewer boarded‐up windows and more lights on at night, says Morris.
One not‐yet‐announced project will convert a vacant downtown building into housing and a childcare center, with around 20 percent of the units designated as“ affordable.”
Perrault also understands symbolism. When Berkshire Bank shifted its headquarters to Boston, it left 99 North Street in Pittsfield looking more like a relic than a headquarters. In late 2017, senior leadership migrated to Boston’ s financial district. While operations and back-office staff originally remained in Pittsfield, the physical presence of the bank downtown began to shrink over the following years, culminating in August 2022, when Berkshire Bank permanently closed and consolidated its branch office at 99 North Street, merging its services into the nearby 66 West Street branch. The closure left the central property largely underutilized.
That’ s all being reversed.
Revitalizing 99 North
Beacon is now renovating its building at 99 North Street— what Morris describes as a“ frame‐up” rebuild, down to the studs. The existing downtown branch at 66 West Street will move into a new flagship branch on the ground floor. The bank is consolidating scattered staff into the building. Commercial lending and customer‐facing folks will be on the first floor. Operations will be on the second,
66 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Fall 2026