IF HE COULD BE A ROCK STAR, James Wojtaszek would be Steve Lukather, guitar player for Toto.

“Lukather’s incredibly talented,” explains Wojtaszek. “He’s spent his career working in a great band as well as on albums of noteworthy pop stars—including Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’—diversifying his playing and his writing.”

Wojtaszek knows a little about guitars, himself: He’s been playing guitar professionally for 37 years. His first opportunities came while living in Hollywood, Calif., in the 1980s, and he continues to play locally when he isn’t working as vice president of $1.1 billion asset Greylock Federal Credit Union in Pittsfield, Mass.

“He’s an accomplished rock/fusion guitarist, and was voted among the top musicians in our region,” says John Bissell, Greylock Federal’s executive vice president.

Similar to what happens to most musicians, reality hit in California when “I found out I needed a day job as well,” says Wojtaszek, who eventually also realized he wanted to return home to Massachusetts.

After sending out a number of feelers in and around Adams, Mass.—where he had grown up—he started in the mailroom at Greylock Federal in 1992. Soon after, management moved him to member service rep and phone rep in early 1993. He quickly moved on from there and through positions as a member services officer, loan originator, underwriter, and branch manager.

The credit union—an early entrant into online financial services—put to use Wojtaszek’s skills in Web design (developed while working in the music industry). He guided the credit union’s website design and Internet banking platform in 1999. From Web design, the next logical step was to work on e-commerce development and create a service team, the credit union’s contact center, to support that environment.

With the credit union’s growth at the beginning of the millennium, management, once again, leveraged Wojtaszek’s technical expertise, asking him to handle the due diligence and implementation of Greylock Federal’s first marketing customer information file system.

In 2006, his duties expanded to overseeing credit union marketing efforts, all of which he continues to do today as vice president of marketing and public relations.

His position also provides him with the opportunity to be active in supporting community relations, community giving and outreach, and local financial literacy initiatives.

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