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 2081: Testing

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“God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Patti and I were at The Kentucky Derby over the weekend.  This was our 24th year in a row attending together.  Each year, Churchill Downs tries to improve the experience, but this year, it didn’t go so well.  They attempted to change the way security was done at each entrance and on Friday, the day before the Derby, which brings out almost the same size crowd as Derby Day.  But their change in procedures, caused lots of confusion and in some cases up to an hour delay for people to enter.  What is kind of hard to understand is why they didn’t test the changes before implementation?  Maybe, they can’t because no other attendance crowd gets anywhere close, but still you’d think that all of us should be testing before implementing. Consequently, on Saturday, Derby Day, they reverted to a prior security company (we were told that planes were chartered with people at midnight on Derby Eve) and it was very embarrassing for the organization.  There is a reason we test.

God also tests us to make us stronger and to deepen our faith. He knows the power of how we can grow when tested and tempted. When in those times, it is hard to understand and know “why”, but we can recognize that this testing is God’s way of showing us that He continues to love us and bring us closer to Him.

Reference: James 1:12 (New Living Translation)