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 444: The Storms Of Work

It rarely happens, but when it does it is memorable. I am writing of the days when we are in the office and a really bad storm rolls in and happens while we are at work. We will be sitting in the office and outside we can hear the thunder and see the lightning. The skies grow dark outside while inside we go about our business, but with one ear and one eye on what is going on outside. The most this ever happened to me was when I worked in Dallas and the storms would come from seemingly nowhere and when they hit, they hit with a vengeance. While sitting in a conference room deep within the building we would hear the rolling thunder or the crack of the air splitting somewhere close. It couldn’t help but take our minds off of work for a few seconds and make us think of home and what was happening there. I don’t know why, but it always makes me feel eerie when this happens. It is also strange how inside of work we have storms happening all around us, all the time. We may overhear one now in the conference room or in the office next to us. We can see one brewing down the hall as the body language of two people shift to that of confrontation. We read the emotionally charged email string that is moving faster than the storm clouds can move over the Midwestern plains. It is likely that we have many more storms inside the building within our careers than outside. Let us remember that regardless of the storms, what causes them, or where they come from that we can find God in them to help us through and to guide us into safety, both literally and figuratively. In Job we read; God’s voice is glorious in the thunder. We can’t even imagine the greatness of his power.” Next time the thunder starts in the office or outside, let us be reminded that we need to listen then for the voice of God to tell us what to do. The power in His words at that time could well be the wisdom we need to weather any storm…inside or out!

Reference: Job 37:5 (New Living Testament)