Name: Armeather Gibbs
Title: Director of Community Relations and Constituent Affairs for Gov. Lincoln Almond
Education: Associate’s degree from Community College of Rhode Island. Pursuing bachelor’s degree at Johnson & Wales University, part-time.
Background: Spent 25 years with Hospital Trust/BankBoston. She held a range of jobs, from secretary to vice president. In 1994 Gibbs joined Governor-elect Lincoln Almond’s transitional team. That led to her present job.
Age: 51
Family: Married, two children
Residence: Providence
PBN: You went from basically a clerical position at Hospital Trust to being a vice president. Can you tell me how that happened?
GIBBS: I went to work in the bank because I wanted and needed a second income in terms of family. I had gotten married relatively young and wanted to start a family and all that. I was working for an insurance company part-time, after school. Then I went to work for them full-time. And then they moved to Warwick, which 25 years ago Warwick was on the other side of the world practically. So I started putting in my application in different places. One of the places was Hospital Trust.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
What department did you start in?
I was hired into the Trust Department that department was responsible for recording interest income earned by trust clients on their investments. At that time we would literally get checks, IBM stock or whatever, for our bank customers and we would add them up on an adding machine and post them to the customer’s account.
I basically stayed in the Trust Department for maybe my first eight years. Then I left and I had my daughter. I came back into the Trust Department. I worked for another couple of years, then I left and I had my son. I came back and I was in the investment area, again sort of posting income to customers’ accounts. Then I had an opportunity to job post out of Trust to what they called then the commercial side of the bank. I became a secretary in the corporate lending department. I worked for the corporate lending officers, and it was a really fascinating area of the bank to be in. At that time – this was before the industry had changed so much – most people, and obviously mostly men, who went on to higher positions in the bank went through corporate lending.
I worked there for a number of years and learned a tremendous amount about lending and customers. But then my children were starting to get a little older, and I realized I was doing a lot of the work, because that’s what you do as a secretary and administrative assistant for the officers you work for. So I began to learn a lot and I realized that I could do what I do, but I could do it as an officer. But there was no in-between step, if you will, from being an administrative assistant to becoming an officer. It was a little bit of a challenge, because I didn’t quite know how to make that transition, but I knew that I wanted to do more than be an administrative assistant. So I stayed in my department and I worked for several different officers, who were really great in terms of learning from them.
Were they mentors?
Not necessarily, because I don’t think at that point in my career I clearly understood what a mentor meant. I do remember having conversations with the officers I worked for, one in particular, John McJennett, who now heads up DEPCO. I worked for John when he first came to the bank and he knew that I wanted to do more, but in the realm of corporate lending, again there was no position he could promote me to. So we basically had an understanding. So when an opportunity came up for me to job post into what was called the Treasury Department, I did that. I was fortunate enough to get that position. That was really the turning point for me in terms of a career, as opposed to a job.
How old were you at this point?
I was probably in my early 30s. And I went into the Treasury Group, which was a major challenge for me. This was an area I knew something about, because what they did in many ways was connected with the corporate work, but to actually be in that arena and learning that part of the bank was really fascinating. It was an investment world, it was the asset-liability management piece. It was actually using the bank’s money and how the bank invested its money. I worked for Thomas E. Gardner for eight years. He was really a difficult person, I thought, in terms of he was a taskmaster. But I realize after coming through that period that the three opportunities I had to be promoted, from an administrative assistant to a vice president level, came in under those years when I was working for Tom in investments. I learned a tremendous amount about banking in that period of time. That was really the growth opportunity for me in terms of the banking world, my own personal growth, and also getting involved during that period with the Urban Bankers Association (a minority oriented organization.)
At that point I met a person, who was going to end up being a boss of mine in the bank. Her name is Gail Snowden, who was at that time with BankBoston. BankBoston had merged with Hospital Trust, and Gail was the national president of Urban Bankers. I had an opportunity to meet her, and she was just a major force in my professional life, because she epitomized everything that I thought that I wanted to be in terms of banking. She was African American, she was female, she was knowledgeable, she was bright and she was a senior person.
There weren’t many women in senior jobs?
Oh absolutely not. Certainly not women of color, which is why I so gravitated toward the Urban Banker organization. It gave me a venue to still be involved in the professional world of banking, but to be involved with people of color who looked like me.
Was it helpful in addition to seeing you could do the work to have someone say you could do the work?
After all these years I realized that nothing that I have done is anything that I planned to do. Which now makes me understand clearly that my destiny, if you will, is probably kind of mapped out for me and I didn’t even know it. Because I never planned to become a banker, I didn’t plan to become a vice president, and I didn’t plan to become all these things that I’ve had the great fortune to do. But I’ve now realized that for whatever the reasons, powers greater than me have kind of set this path for me. I’ve begun to follow that path and to recognize, as you say, when other people would say to me: ‘You know, you can do this.’ So that mentor role became very important in my life, through certain individuals who were pushing me in a very gentle kind of way, but pushing me toward recognizing that I should capitalize on the strengths that I had.
What did you think when you were promoted to vice president?
In all honesty I never anticipated or thought that I would get to that level, not that I didn’t think I could. It just wasn’t in my thinking. Once I was promoted that first time to my first professional title, money market officer – it was officer – it was like this is what I’ve been working for, this is what I’ve wanted. Then I realized after I got to that level, gee, if I could become a money market officer then I could become an assistant vice president. I don’t think anyway you should ever get to a point where you’re like this is it, this is where I want to be, this is the end-all. It doesn’t work this way. I certainly believe now everything I’ve had the opportunity to do has prepared me for another level, for another step, for another position, for another opportunity, for another challenge. I clearly, clearly see that. Even for this job I have now, I firmly believe it is another stepping stone to something else. I don’t know what it is.
Tell me about working on Governor Almond’s transition team?
Right after I accepted the opportunity to work on the transition team, and they published something in the paper saying this is the governor’s team, immediately the day the article showed up in the paper I started getting phone calls from people, mostly people in the community. People who knew me through the bank, knew me through some of the boards I worked on. Mostly people of color, who said, ‘I really want the governor to know this’ and ‘this is something you should make sure you tell him.’ It was a flurry of stuff and I began to record what people called me about. I said to the governor and other members of the transition team and the person who was then chief-of-staff, this is a lot of stuff I’m getting from the community and I really want to make sure the governor knows and understands. I would suggest, if you haven’t considered it, having someone or a department in the administration to really handle the community.
His predecessor (Bruce Sundlun) hadn’t had an office like that?
There was a community liaison department – this very office – but it wasn’t a senior level position that was a member of the governor’s senior staff. That was one of the main differences because before I agreed to take the position I wanted to make it very clear to the administration that to me this was a great opportunity. I wasn’t looking at it so much as an opportunity for me, but more as an opportunity for a community representative to really bring a perspective to the administration. I felt it important for me to be able to do that, that I had to be at a senior level position, that I had to have access to the governor, that I had to be involved.
The head of the Commission on Hispanic Affairs (Marta Martinez) was recently critical of the governor and this office in the Providence Journal, stating she had been unable to meet with him. What’s been going on with that?
I had a conversation afterwards with Marta Martinez, who is the chair of the governor’s commission. One of the challenges is that, amongst everything else we do, that part of what we do is (just one) part of what we do. It’s just that we’re much bigger than that. But we have always made it very clear from the very beginning that the administration, the governor’s office, this office is very open, very receptive to anyone.
It was a little bit frustrating, because I think some of Marta’s points were true in the sense that no we have not had ongoing, direct communication. However, I get the commission meeting minutes, I have talked to Marta many times on the phone, she knows where I am, she knows how to call me. So to pick up the newspaper and to read that the governor isn’t caring and that you couldn’t get an appointment. Granted Marta did send a letter, that we traced and found that fell through the cracks someplace; but if you send a letter and specifically ask for something that you don’t get an answer to, in my mind going to the Journal isn’t the way to do it. Having said that, we ended up meeting with Marta and another member of the commission, myself, Michael DiBiasi, the chief of staff, and we talked about all those things. They specifically asked for more (financial) support for the commission, which we are in the process of working with them on.
It’s a matter of recognizing that nothing in this world is perfect, but I think that we do have to be better on the community side and on the administration side in recognizing that we have to be better. I think we are doing that.
