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 1516: Adding It All Up

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“But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?”

If you have flown anytime in the recent past you know that nearly every airline has adopted “add-on” fees.  Even the airlines that boasted for so long about their amenities have gone the way of the norm and now charge for almost anything that is extra.  JetBlue joins the club in 2015 with adding a fee for a first checked bag. I watched this past week as a teenager who didn’t realize that there was an up-charge for a checked bag almost go into a panic because he didn’t have a credit card and they didn’t take cash. (He decided to carry the bag, even though it appeared too big for the overhead compartment). Yes, we can expect more and more “add-on” charges in the places that we might have expected an amenity to come with the price.  In the midst of all of this, there stands an opportunity to differentiation if one can figure out how to save a little in efficiencies and then pass that back to the consumer with something that will be perceived as an “extra”.

When I think of the cost of our salvation, I only fall more in love with Christ for the fact that He paid for it all and then never comes back and adds on anything else that we must do other than accept and follow Him.  In that gift alone should be enough joy and thankfulness to carry each one of through the worst of our times.  As we prepare to sit around a table of thanks this week, let’s be sure and focus that thanks on all of the giving that God has done for us and how He has done so without a single add-on upcharge upon us.

Reference: Luke 14:28 (New Living Translation)