PORTSMOUTH – After 39 years at Piscataqua Savings Bank, President and CEO Rick Wallis will retire on Sept. 30.
Wallis, who has served as president and CEO since 2012, will be succeeded in the bank’s top leadership position by Joan Gile, who has been with the mutual savings bank 34 years.
Gile will be the 13th president and CEO of the local bank, founded in 1877. All 12 of her predecessors were men.
“I’m honored to be the first female president of the bank,” Gile, 61, said in an interview Thursday.
Wallis, 62, joined Pisacataqua Savings Bank upon graduation from University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore School of Business in 1981. He was recruited into a newly created officer training program and steadily rose through the ranks, spending the bulk of his career as a mortgage loan officer.