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 818: From Worship To Workplace

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“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever”

Yesterday on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bay Area section there was a story titled “From worship to workplace”. The article detailed about how an old abandoned Catholic church in San Francisco had been purchased by a group of investors who are now renovating it to turn it into a start-up incubator. That means that when the building is all done what was once a place of worship will be a place of businesses teaming with young entrepreneurs with new ideas and racing to market. Once again this goes to show how powerful the environment can be and why people want to work in creative and non-traditional spaces. It’s in these places that maybe the best thinking occurs, where the mind is freed or triggered to be able to have the room to ideate. We don’t have to go buy and rehab churches for creative space, but finding ways to break the conventional could yield some interesting results.

I also like the article’s headline because it is a good reminder that this is what we actually do every week; we go from worship to workplace and we choose whether or not we will stay in a worshipful attitude on Monday or leave it behind until next weekend. King David tells us his approach to life when he praises God for all the great things that He does for him and David knows that he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. While in a few months a bunch of start-up employees will be working in a former house of worship, we can now dwell in the house of the Lord today, tomorrow and forever. What a promise and assurance that God has given us! Are we taking full advantage of the house of the Lord for our lives? Let’s try and be people who don’t find any distinction or distraction between worship and the workplace!

Reference: Psalm 23:5-6