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 2094: Saying Goodbye to Now

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“There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”

I’m working with a company that likes to continue to talk about the successes of the past, in hopes of assuring that the future will be fine.  But, that is not the way it works.  Last week during the Tony Awards ceremony the actor Frank Langella was accepting the award for the best actor in a play.  His role in “The Father” was that of a man losing his mind with Alzheimer’s disease.  In his speech he told of the agony that one feels to be saying goodbye to now. I can’t imagine.  But, he is right for all of us.  Every moment of now is gone thereafter and while we can have memories, we can’t bring back the past. Companies can’t count on the past and neither can anyone of us as the now, it continues to move past us.

Patti and I were in a church in Dallas a week ago Sunday and the Pastor was teaching on the virtues of Heaven.  He wanted to try and answer the F.A.Q.s about Heaven. He started by telling us that if we knew too much about Heaven then we wouldn’t want to live here anymore and we would do all we could to get to heaven as fast we could.  We would want to skip now and go right to the future.  He also said that our hearts are always seeking Heaven and that God wants us to make the most of each and every day (moments of now), otherwise He would have us skip this human stage. So, when we wonder, “Why?” about this life, let’s not skip by the moments of now because clearly, we are not supposed to do so.  Which, in return, should make us appreciate all the more what we have right in front of us now.

Reference: John 14:2 (New Living Translation)