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 2117: What Can I Do?

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“The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’“

A friend that I have now known for five years was profiled last week on the front page of a New York Times story.  She didn’t belong in this story, but she ended up there anyway and as I read it, knowing her, I could only imagine how devastated she must have felt.  I also felt the same way for her and I wondered to myself, “What can I do for her?”  I immediately wrote as much of a heartfelt note as I could, encouraging her to be strong and that those of us who knew her closely knows that she was characterized unfairly.  The same day, I was informed about a high school friend’s wife who was diagnosed with cancer.  I asked myself the same question, “What can I do?”  I sat down and pulled out a piece of stationary and a pen and wrote her and her husband a letter.  I had done the same the week before for another high school friend who is battling his own cancer.  And, I had done the same for a neighbor here in Rhode Island who suffered a stroke and embolism and who is now in an assisted living residence away from here.  The question of, “What Can I do?” seems to pop up more and more in conversations with friends and business associates as societal problems continue to increase.  I have found that the answer for, “What can I do?” is pretty simple.  The answer is, “I can do what I can do, if I just do it.”  And so, a note, a letter, a phone call, a donation, a hug, and a prayer might be all I can do, but I think it is what Jesus meant when He reaffirmed that we are to love our neighbor as we love our ourselves.

So today, let’s do what we can do.

Reference: Luke 10:27 (New Living Translation)