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 1077: Dedications

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“King David dedicated all these gifts to the Lord, along with the silver and gold he had taken from the other nations—from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, and Amalek.”

When we typically use the word “Dedicated” in business we are speaking in terms of how dedicated someone might be to their job or to the company.  We don’t have many instances where we are actually “dedicating” something unless it is to recognize a milestone, achievement or historical reference. That takes time and alignment to want to reflect a person, group, or team for this dedication.  I remember once when we created a creativity award and we ended up dedicating it to the company’s first Chief Creative Officer and company co-founder.  Since then that person has left the company and actually become a competitor.  I should check in and see if that award is still being given in his dedication.  So, there is risk in dedicating things to human beings.  We see it in statues and memorials when later people fall in their reputation.  It is a dangerous thing, so we tend to default into not dedicating anything at all.

References in the Old Testament of dedication are about dedicating those treasures gained in battle and war to the Lord. David and those who followed him continued to dedicate their “plunders”.  Later we learn that we as human beings are God’s treasures and we are to dedicate our lives to Him.  God allows for the risk that we in our lives will always cause some issue that can tarnish our dedication to Him.  But, he continues to ask and accept that we are dedicated to His calling, will and name.  What a gift and challenge this is for us all.  To be dedicated to God is a purpose that can’t be trumped.  We need to each consider what this means in our lives and what we must do to stay as pure and committed as we can.  Today, think about how we should act and react and keep front of mind that we are each to be one of God’s dedications.

Reference: 1 Chronicle 18:11 (New Living Translation)