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 1543: The New Guy

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“Once a religious leader asked Jesus this question: “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”

I was asked recently about a new singer-songwriter and whether or not I had heard of him? I hadn’t but I did what almost all of us like to do when we hear about someone “new”; I searched him online and then went and listened to his music.  I liked it.  But, the point is that I would have not heard of him for some time, or maybe never, had not someone asked me if I had heard of “this new guy”.  We love the new and that is why we spend a lot of time introducing the “new” or the “new and improved”.  It doesn’t work every time, but the intrigue of seeing, finding, or knowing the new is pretty universal and something that we should pay attention to if things are feeling a little stale or tired.  A dose of “new” could be just what is needed right now.

In Luke we read of the account of the rich, young ruler who sought out Jesus. I can imagine that he heard about Jesus because someone told him, “Hey, have you heard of the new guy who is a teacher and has this group of guys with him going around preaching about a new way of thinking about God and beliefs?”.  I can also imagine the rich, young ruler, saying, “Where do you think I can meet this new guy?”  What is amazing, thousands of years later is that Jesus remains a “new guy”, each and everyday and we can tell others about Him with that same excitement and enthusiasm today as when He first came to the earth.  And, for each person who accepts and meets Him for the first time, everything becomes new.  So, if you are wondering today, in this New Year, about how to talk about Jesus, maybe you can start with, “Have you heard of this new guy?”

Reference: Luke 18:18 (New Living Translation)