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 2127: Passing Of The Baton

purposed worKING No Comments

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

I was in a meeting last week where the Chair of the Board was finishing his term and handing over the leadership to another person who would take on the role for the next three years.  As a parting set of words the retiring chair explained the ancient tradition of passing the baton filled with messages that runners would carry from one point to another.  He’d actually created a baton made of wood where he had every past living leader of the organization sign.  The new person received the baton and said, “As you were talking about this baton passing thing, I kind of thought it a little corny until I now have it in my hand and see all of these signatures and recognize the responsibility of taking over and keeping up with what they have accomplished before.”  I thought to myself, how cool it would be if in every job we created a signed baton and had it passed on when someone was promoted or left the company? Maybe we would take the gravity of what are expected to do, much more seriously.

Every part of working and living for the glory of God is another segment in bringing His kingdom to others.  Yes, we passing and receiving the baton each and every day and with it comes the same level of seriousness and responsibility that the prior followers of Jesus took when they were alive.  If today it feels like something is with us that we are carrying, it might well be the baton of the Holy Spirit.

Reference: 1 Corinthians 15:58 (New Living Translation)