Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 2237: Through Thick and Thin

“…This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.”

David Brooks writes of the difference between “Thick Organizations” and “Thin Organizations”.  You can read his explanation here. What struck me most about these different cultures was that a thick organization thinks in terms of being on a vertical axis with people going deep with each other against shared purpose and meaning.  Thin cultures on the other hand move horizontally, operating for “mutual benefit”.  It’s a big and stark difference and with a few honest self-assessment questions we can see which we are.

God has built His Kingdom to be thick, filled with believing, committed servants, doing their best to follow Jesus. No where does it say that it is easy to be a part of His thick community, but we do know that He is there with us through it all, thick or when we are thin!

Reference:  Genesis 17:7 (New Living Translation)