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 1903: A Long Trip

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“Afterward I will return and restore the fallen house of David. I will rebuild its ruins and restore it…”

I read with fascination of the one-year into space journey that astronaut Scott Kelly will be taking.  He sounded in an interview so nonchalant about it all, but it has to affect him in that he is leaving his family behind for that long.  I was with a childhood friend this past weekend who now does heavy industry mill-crafting work and he was leaving this week for a five month job that he only gets to come home on the weekends.  You could see in his face how much he wasn’t looking forward to the time away. Whether it is one year, five months, a week or a few days, we all have our tolerance to how long is too long a trip away.  In today’s world, traveling and being way from home is normal, but each and every time a trip is scheduled, we might want to consider; what is the impact on the person and their families?  Sometimes, we might need to intervene to be sure that we are doing the right thing by letting the travel happen, or do we need to moderate their (or our) time away?

Jesus left the earth and told His disciples and all of us that He will return.  We don’t know when, but I know I live in hope that He could return within my lifetime.  How cool would that be?  But even if that doesn’t happen we can start each day with the anticipation and promise that He will return AND that He will be waiting for us if we get to Him first.  Let’s go at this day with the anticipation like of a welcoming or being welcomed home after a long trip away!

Reference:  Acts 15:16 (New Living Translation)