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 1195: Availability, Part 2

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“Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing.” 

Earlier this week was the first time I had been in NYC since they added CitiBikes.  I must say, I was amazed by the number of riders I saw using the bikes. But, I was even more amazed by the people I saw riding them.  Men, women, older, younger, dressed for work, dressed for hanging out, dressed for going out at night, all kinds of people using the bikes for what they needed; to get from one place to another. Before CitiBikes, they would have been in a cab, on the subway, or walking.  But, with a little availability of another form or transportation where they didn’t need to buy, maintain, store, lock, or worry about their own bike, they were using a bike to get around Manhattan.  And, they were paying for it.  What can we learn from this?  What I see is that availability of everyday products and services, that when made accessible, that we will pay for the temporary use and fulfill a need.  Provide a bike.  How simple and to think how long it took us to get here.

I come back to the fact that our availability for others is more valuable than we even imagine.  Yesterday, I took a phone call with someone who I didn’t know at all, who wanted to request some information from my experience for a project he was getting off the ground.  In 30 minutes we covered a lot of ground.  At the end of the time, he told me that the number of people who he couldn’t get to call him back or spend any time with him, were beyond counting.  His appreciation of our time was also beyond measurement.  In that conversation I got the chance to mention my church activities, this blog, and why I give of my time to talk to others; enough dots for him to connect that part of my expression of God’s purpose for me, access and grace comes through my time allocations.  Being available to do God’s work can mean doing it when we least expect it. Being always available and on call for God is what we must do.

Reference: Philippians 2:4 (New Living Translation)