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 555: Gifts That Keep Giving

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We are likely invited each year to at least one work-related holiday event at someones residence and we are faced with what to bring along as the leave behind thank you gift. I always marvel at these gifts as if they get beyond a bottle of something then they steer towards something for the house and those things are usually very much focused on what the woman of the house would like to receive; candles, soaps, holiday hand towels, piece of decorative ornamental, etc. It would be very unusual to see a set of picture hangers, molly plugs or hand tools. But, I digress. 🙂 What we see in these gifts are what we expect that others will want to receive being that we really don’t know them all that well and we have to temper them with the fact that this is work based. So, we end up giving gifts that are pretty bland, vanilla and nondescript. It’s an interesting process because it is just the opposite of what we might really want to do and what someone would want to receive. The best gifts are those that are personalized and very much tailored to the wants and needs of the individual. What we really want is someone to receive a gift that they don’t have words to express their appreciation because they are so blown away. Many times these are the gifts that we give of ourselves to others with our time, our resources, our skills, our caring and our thoughtfulness. And, we don’t have to save those gifts for special occasions or the holiday season. Those are gifts that can be given everyday at work to others. As we think of how we are to give of ourselves to others we should look to the ultimate gift ever given and try and model to Him. In 2 Corinthians 9:15 it says, “Thank God for his Son – a gift too wonderful for words.” We will never be able to give a gift like what God gave us but we can try our best to give of ourselves to others so that our gits keep on giving and giving!

Reference: 2 Corinthians 9:15 (New Living Testament)