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 574: MLK Day Continued

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This week we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and commemorated that this day has been a U.S. federal holiday for 25 years. I remember when working at Frito-Lay Headquarters in Dallas in 1991 and being asked to do the cost analysis on what it would cost the company to establish an additional holiday for the company so that we could celebrate MLK Day. The figure escapes me now, but it was not cheap, but our CEO didn’t really care about the cost, he cared about doing the right thing and he established the holiday for the company. I often have thought about that analysis and the decision. There wasn’t any way to shave the cost and give the holiday to some and not to others. But, someone had asked how much it would cost and the analysis had to be done. Once done and we were looking at the very large number, the decision became bigger and in fact, even more decisive and bold to make. The analysis reinforced the magnitude of the decision and made it even than much more of a statement that it was still the right thing to do. Often in business we are faced with these types of decisions and at that point all we have to draw upon is what we believe and know to be right, true, and good. We wonder why companies make decisions that cause shame or bad light to be directed towards them. It’s really an easy answer; the decision maker didn’t know what the right thing to do was or worse, knew and ignored it and chose the opposite alternative. We all get called on, all the time, to do the right thing. If we follow God’s leading and not deviate then we will be fine. Paul gives us this promise, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Let’s be sure that we follow through on what we know to be the right thing to do and take those stands when needed. We celebrated a holiday this week for a man who did just that so let’s remember the impact that one person can have when they stand for what they believe.

Reference: Philippians 1:6 (New Living Testament)