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 3K232: Gifts Of Work – Exercising Of Purpose

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

For those readers who have been away or just catching up, I am writing for the month of December a series on “The Gifts of Work” as my Christmas Gift to You!

Today, we will explore the gift that work gives us by being able to exercise our purpose.  Thomas Edison, the inventor and also the co-founder of General Electric (we forget that part of his life story) said, “The secret of success is focus of purpose.”  Many companies have vision and mission statements but when asked what their “purpose” is, they may not as easily be able to articulate that.  Purpose is “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.” It is the core truth of our existence.  Find that and we have found success and we will have received a gift!

One of PwK’s most loyal readers, Tim O. sent me an article by Jordan J. Ballor, director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy.  Jordan profoundly wrote this on purpose and work: “God has gifted each individual person with a purpose and with a calling to seek out ways of loving our neighbors—and providing jobs to workers, goods and services to customers, and profit to investors are all concrete ways of loving and doing good to others.” When we combine our purpose and our work, we not only experience the gift that God wants us to have, but we are also sharing that gift with others.

Reference: Romans 8:28 (New Living Translation)