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 1137: Reserves

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“…Give us our food day by day.”

It would be a very unlikely Board meeting that someone wasn’t looking at the cash reserves of the company and making a projection of how much was needed over a future time period.  The cash reserves are a surplus to be invested/spent on acquisitions/R&D or delivered back to the shareholders at some point.  Or, the cash reserve is the tank by which the company that is not yet at cash flow positive survives.  Either way, cash reserves telling to the overall health of the company.  With way too much cash on the balance sheet (e.g., Apple) one must wonder if the company is being aggressive enough in their innovation or market expansion.  With too little cash then the company can’t take risks either and spend too much time in fundraising mode.  Analysts and investors look at cash reserves as an important part of the narrative of the company.  Too much, too little, hoarding, overspending, etc. are all part of the balancing act of an organization and the actions/measures it must take to grow and thrive…or survive.

We face our own reserve challenges, whether it be cash, savings, energy or time.  God does not teach us to store up any of these while on earth but instead to look daily for our supply.  The Israelites received manna from heaven daily and were given a limited amount of time that it would last.  Why didn’t God just load them up and be done with it?  Because, He wants us to trust in Him, not on ourselves or other people.  That is why He taught us to pray for our daily food  That word daily is all about our cadence of trust and reliance on Him.  If we are not returning to Him at least daily then we need to question what are we doing with our reserves and if we are storing up too much of us and not enough of Him?

Reference: Luke 11:3 (New Living Translation)