MultiCare’s Leah Butters ’15 believes that great care starts with recruiting great employees

“What I liked about the major was it was interdisciplinary,” she explains. “I wanted to be prepared for an open-ended career.” 

As an undergraduate, Butters interned with the Oregon Environmental Council and Citizens for a Healthy Bay. After graduation, she spent a year as the Community Engagement and Marketing Coordinator at Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity, followed by almost four years as a marketing manager at the Alaska Airlines Credit Union. 

Butters is now the recruitment marketing team leader at MultiCare Health System. She oversees all of MultiCare’s recruitment marketing, managing virtual hiring events, websites, social media, and more. “I love getting to do all of those different pieces,” she says. “It just makes it so interesting. Every day is different.”

She also coordinates partnerships with Indeed, Linkedin, and other advertising partners to make sure critical positions are reaching the eyes of qualified candidates.

“Our main marketing team at MultiCare is focused on our patients and communities here locally, but in recruitment we’re campaigning to nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals nationwide, so it’s a huge marketing operation,” she says. “Recruitment marketing is a little bit different, but, ultimately, we’re just trying to connect the best candidates with our opportunities.”

Butters started at MultiCare in January 2020. She knew that the Coronavirus she was beginning to read about in the news may become a serious issue, but she could have never imagined the whirlwind that has been the last two years.

“When the pandemic hit it shook up our team, and I wound up with a lot more responsibility very quickly,” she says. “Our team is just continually thinking of what else we can do, and growing, and trying to support the organization to the best of our abilities throughout this difficult time.”

Butters always connects her work back to mission, values and service. She thinks often of an observation made frequently by her director – that recruiting great employees is the first step to providing great patient care. 

“Thinking like that always motivates me and reminds me how crucial our work is.”

Lute Powered is a new series highlighting PLU alumni at some of the most well-known organizations in the Puget Sound region. Leah Butters ’15 is the third and final Lute being featured from MultiCare Health System. The series also included profiles of Terri Card ’83, COO of outpatient operations for MultiCare Behavioral Health, and Mark Mariani ’98, MultiCare’s chief medical officer and vice president for retail health.