In the business world there are managers who focus on company success. Then there are mentors who take time to focus on the success of their colleagues.
Tia Bush of Amgen Rhode Island is both.
Vice President of site operations for the biologic-medicine manufacturing company’s 75-acre West Greenwich site, her career at Amgen started 25 years ago and has included various quality-assurance positions overseeing the company’s facilities around the world. The company manufactures pharmaceuticals such as Enbrel, which can treat rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic conditions, and makes materials for clinical trials.
Bush is also responsible for leading site operations at an Amgen facility in Woburn, Mass., and leads a team of about 600 people overall.
With all this going on, she still makes time for high-quality mentoring of employees and co-workers. She is an active member of Amgen’s Women’s Interactive Network, which encourages women’s professional growth. Earlier this year she won the Million Women Mentors Rhode Island Stand Up for STEM award from the national Million Women Mentors initiative.
“Throughout her years at Amgen, she has been a mentor and coach for many individuals,” Senior Manager of Corporate Affairs Tara Urban said in the Business Women nomination form for Bush.
Urban has worked with Bush for about five months and has been impressed.
“She is very authentic,” she said. “No matter how busy she is, she is thoughtful and calm when she speaks to you. She makes you feel that you have her full attention.”
Bush provides career-growth opportunities for the people around her. Plus, she continually sets her own personal and professional goals. “That motivates others to do the same, because we see what she does,” Urban said.
Amgen Executive Director of Quality Assurance Kathy Demarest has worked with Bush for 13 years. “She’s very respectful of her colleagues and generous with her time and her knowledge,” Demarest said. “She’s been a mentor, a leader that consistently exhibits a positive attitude and is always willing to share … with her team members. She takes a personal interest in her staff. … She makes her employees feel their jobs have an important value.”
Bush elaborated on the method behind her style. “I think the most specific way that I approach mentoring is by giving my time to the individual and listening intently for where I may be able to offer advice, encouragement, or a different perspective on their particular situation,” she said.
Why does she do it?
“I hope that I can challenge them to think about their situation from different angles and to help them identify distinctions or choices that they may have in order to move forward with their own vision or aspiration,” she said. “I often find that I am helping them to understand the bigger picture and to consider challenges as an opportunity to grow and develop.”
Bush typically maintains three to six active mentoring relationships at any given time, she said, though she doesn’t keep count. For Bush, it’s all about giving something in return for the attention she has benefited from early in her career.
“I would not have had the success in my career if it were not for individuals in my life that have served as mentors and coaches for me,” she said. “I believe in giving back, and this is one way that I can help others unleash their full potential in achieving their career and life aspirations.”
Bush’s 25 years of corporate experience is a well she can draw from to help others who are starting their career, looking for ways to grow and perhaps avoid pitfalls along the way.
“It is the right thing to do to share that knowledge so that others can gain from it, including not making the same mistakes that I made along the way,” she said.