Recipient of MDA’s top award shares strategies for personal success

by Amy Labbe

Tom Bush spent 40 productive years in the working world, and has retired — twice in fact — from rich and rewarding careers.

Nowadays, the 66-year-old Oro Valley, Ariz., resident, who has type 3 spinal muscular atrophy, keeps a somewhat slower pace, traveling and trying out new restaurants with his wife of 39 years, Tina. Although their three children long since have grown and moved out, three cats and two roadrunner families, to whom the Bushes feed raw meatballs (the roadrunners, not the cats), keep them company.

But Bush did find a little extra excitement in his life recently on a trip to glitzy Las Vegas. There he attended the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon and was presented with the 2009 Robert Ross MDA Personal Achievement Award. Each year, the award (named after MDA’s late president and CEO) recognizes the accomplishments and community service of a person registered with the Association.

industrial engineering job with the Department of

Transportation.

Working in civil service, Bush achieved not only professional success, but the passion to help others that defines him still today.

One of his many achievements in New Jersey was coordinating the implementation of the newly signed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He helped state agencies develop and share innovative ways to eliminate barriers and improve accessibility to state programs for people with disabilities.

It was this work, and his service on the New Jersey Governor’s ADA Task Force, that lead Bush to realize he was in a position to help others and make a difference.

“I could really assist with doing something — with opening doors,” Bush explains. “It was my opportunity to give back, to pave the way and open doors for the people who will come after me.”

Retiring from a 30-year-career in 1993, Bush moved to Tucson, Ariz., where he served on the local MDA Task Force on Public Awareness, before coming to work at MDA national headquarters. There he developed, operated and managed the Association’s first Web site. Under his direction, the one-page site grew into three sites (main, ALS Division and Spanish language), that disseminate information about

Tom and Tina Bush have learned how to manage disability together. “If I dress well, look well, it’s a result of Tina’s help,” Tom says. “She has been my support, and she’s also my quality of life.”

research, clinical trials and MDA benefits and services.

Outside of work, Bush continued to do all he could to “give back,” including:

Finding a career;
finding a passion

• serving on a task force for the City of Oro Valley that created the com-munity's award-winning accessible transportation service, Coyote Run;

 

Bush’s road to recognition has been a long one, marked by many successes. It began, he says, with a young boy who had supportive parents and an unstoppable drive to make something of himself.

A good student, Bush earned a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., in 1964. After an extensive job search — made longer by discrimination due to his disability — Bush began what would turn into a long career with the New Jersey state government, starting in an entry level

• founding and guiding Linkages, a Tucson-based organization that helps people with disabilities find employment with cooperating employers;

 

• serving on the Citizens Advisory Committee for the City of Tucson’s Regional Transportation Authority for roadway planning and design;

 

• volunteering his expertise in policy-making as: a commissioner on the City of Tucson Disability Issues Commission; vice president of the Architectural Barriers League; a member of the University of Arizona ADA