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.

3K225: Build It Higher

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“For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

It has to be a very heady moment if you are an architect and your client says to you, “I want you to build the tallest building in the world.” The quest to have the highest structure goes back to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Then centuries later the Lincoln Cathedral stood the tallest for almost 250 years. In the 19th century there was a lot of cathedral building in Europe and then we in America got in the race to be tallest with Philadelphia City Hall, then skyscrapers like the Empire State Building, Chicago Sear’s Tower, etc.  At the end of the 1990’s The Petronas Towers took the crown.  22 years later more than a dozen new buildings have held the title. Today, the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  And before long, that will be second, third or even further down the list.  We are always building and trying to prove to ourselves and others that we (as a society and even in our companies) can outdo ourselves and break a record.  It’s part and parcel to who we are.

Jonn Elledge who wrote an article on this phenomena and where I found the above facts, also pointed out that there has been an evolution that rode aside the changes in building heights. Originally, they were religious structures, then political and now commercial/capitalism focused.  I find this a good reminder that in our work of commerce where we try and build higher and higher that we can’t lose the focus on our faith and the heights that God can take us to.  God tells us that His way and thoughts are higher than ours!  Let’s remember that as we are building higher in whatever it is that we have been given to do.

Reference: Isaiah 55:9 (New Living Translation)

Note: I’m excited to start a PwK series of posts on “The Gift of Work” beginning Monday, December the 5th for the full month, which as we know is the “Gift month of the year!