Tia G. Bushman, Bus Ad '94
Young Alumna of the Year AwardCollege of Business Administration and
Graduate School of Management
Young Alumna of the Year Award
Tia G. Bushman, Bus Ad '94
Tia Bushman has gone from managing a bank's $226 million commercial loan portfolio to managing a portfolio of a very different sort for the Chicago Archdiocese. As the archdiocese's contract manager, she leases vacant Catholic schools, convents and rectories to generate profit for parishes.
It's an important job — especially now. "The downturn in the economy has hit parishes in low-income neighborhoods especially hard," Tia says. "Without a secondary source of income, many of these parishes would be forced to close their doors. My job has gone from simply being a resource to a necessity for many of them."
Tia, who earned an M.B.A. from Loyola University Chicago in 2000, found a concrete way to serve those in need. "Marquette taught me that the ideas of being successful and caring for others do not need to be mutually exclusive," she says.
Her service doesn't end when her workday does. Co-chairing a volunteer committee for Catholic Charities Chicago, she leads a wide variety of outreach efforts — serving meals to homeless veterans, packing groceries for emergency assistance packages, hosting basic banking and finance classes for refugees, and more.
Tia says, "A business ethics professor once told my class that the education and opportunities we were being given at Marquette would pave the way for us to go out and make decisions that would change the world," something she tries to do every day.
"I don't always succeed," she adds, "but I am going to get up tomorrow and try again."
Fun facts about Tia
Favorite quote: “Some things I cannot change, but till I try, I’ll never know.” — Wicked
