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 1936: Remembering To Not Forget

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“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”

Patti and I stayed in a VRBO condo this past weekend just outside of Santa Barbara, CA.  It was a new place that had a digital lock on the front door.  All we had to remember was the four-digit code.  I remarked to my friends who were renting the unit next to us that it was pretty nice to not have to deal with a key (keep it on my body or hide it somewhere) and my buddy wisely said, “One less thing to forget, one more thing to remember”.  He was right that while I didn’t have to deal with a physical key, I had to remember a code in my brain.  The trade off feels better to me, but it might not to all people who don’t have a great memory and still end up carrying around a piece of paper with the code written on it, or have to put the code in their phone.  As we move to the digital offerings that seem so cool right now, we can’t forget the consumer wants not only cool but also the removal of both the thing and the worry.  If and when we get rid of both, we have hit a home run.

God shows up for us in some many unexpected ways, like when a friend makes a statement about a door lock and I heard God say to me, “A key cannot be hidden in your heart Rusty.  A key, like any other physical item can get lost, destroyed or just deteriorate, but something hidden inside of you, like my Word and The Holy Spirit, is what matters and can’t be taken away…and don’t worry about forgetting the code….you can’t.” Let’s be sure that we are hiding, keeping and focusing on those things that God wants us to always remember and it’s really okay if we forget the rest.

Reference:  Matthew 6: 19-21 (New Living Translation)