Jeanne Hulit, a banking veteran and former top official with the Small Business Administration, has been named president and chief executive officer of Maine Community Bancorp, which owns two Maine banks.

The appointment was announced Monday morning and represents the first hiring of a single president and CEO since Biddeford Savings Bank and Mechanics Savings Bank entered into an agreement in 2015 to form Maine Community Bancorp.

Before her hiring by Maine Community Bancorp, Hulit was president of Village Candle in Wells, where she focused on expanding the company’s international market.

In 2013, she served as acting administrator for the Small Business Administration, a Cabinet-level position within the Obama administration. She also served as the SBA’s New England regional administrator and as associate administrator for the SBA’s Office of Capital Access.

Hulit also has nearly 20 years of experience in banking, serving as president of community banking for Northeast Bank, senior vice president for commercial lending at Citizens Bank, and vice president of KeyBank. She also was deputy director of the International Division of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

“Jeanne Hulit’s decades of experience in banking alone would make her an excellent candidate to lead this organization,” Jon S. Oxman, chairman of the Maine Community Bancorp board of directors, said in a prepared statement announcing Hulit’s appointment. “In banking, in public service, in community service, her knowledge, skill and leadership, often in the face of great change, make her the perfect person to strengthen this alliance of community banks.”

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Hulit said she was attracted to the company’s focus on community banking.

“The commitment of Maine Community Bancorp to its communities and to its continued independence is gratifying. I’m eager to be a part of its future,” she said.

The current chief executive officers of the two banks, Charles Petersen of Biddeford Savings Bank and Rick Vail of Mechanic Savings Bank, will both retire in October soon after Hulit assumes the position of president and CEO.

Biddeford Savings Bank has branches in Biddeford, Waterboro, Scarborough and Kennebunk. Mechanics Savings Bank has branches in Auburn, Brunswick, Lewiston and Windham.


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