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 1888: Celebrating An Arrival

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“Rise up, O Lord, in all your power. With music and singing we celebrate your mighty acts.”

Today is St. Patrick’s Day.  For many, it’s a day to wear green and eat and drink as the Irish do.  But, behind St. Patrick’s day is the celebration of an arrival, the arrival of Christianity to Ireland in the 17th Century.  We are not unfamiliar with celebrating arrivals as we do it all the time when someone new is hired, a deal is closed, a product finally launched, etc.  Yet, more often than not we forget, like most have, what the real reason is behind the celebration.  We can let the celebration get in the way of taking the time to reflect and reinforce what is behind the celebration.  New hire announcements are a perfect example of this in that we love to announce and celebrate the new person we snagged, but we don’t go into “why” we hired this person and what she/he brings to the company and the needs that they will, if successful, fill.  If we spent more time with the reasons behind the celebration we might find that we are adding more meaning and understanding for everyone.

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is full or celebrations, each with a reason behind them that gets carried through generations to mark a reason, a victory, an event, an overcoming, or an arrival. God wants us to celebrate in our lives, but He also challenges us to be reminded why.  When we get back to the “why” we might find that our celebration changes in how we go about  celebrating.  Today is a great example. If we consider that St. Patrick’s Day is a remembrance of the arrival of Christianity to Ireland, might we rethink what we end up doing for St. Patrick’s Day?  We can and should have fun in our lives, but we should also remain grounded in how and why we embark on that celebration.  That grounding is important.

Reference:  Psalm 21:13 (New Living Translation)