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 365: Service Anniversary

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Today marks another anniversary in the life of Purposed worKING. Started on October 1, 2008, the idea was to write these posts each business day for one calendar year, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. When September 30th, 2009 rolled around and I was looking at one full year of writing, I was going to put this to rest, but I started having people ask me to not stop the writing. So, I decided to continue for three more months and during that time pursue the possibility of collecting the posts into a written daily devotional book and try publishing them that way. After talking to a couple of publishers, who were quick to tell me that the “devotional book” business was significantly “off” commercially and that there wasn’t much interest in this topic, I told myself that it was not time to stop but push through until I had finished 365 posts. For the past few weeks I had been thinking on how I would wind this down after 365 but a funny thing began to happen. I began to get unsolicited emails and comments of encouragement about the blog. They were random from a broad set of people. As i looked at the collection I heard, “keep at this, it is meaningful to me”. I then was approached on Sunday by a fellow worshiper in our church, who I had not met before, who told me that the blog is a real help to him in his job as a believer in a secular role. That is what Purposed worKING was meant to do. I marvel at how God does talk to us. So, I stand in service to God and to you and have decided to continue on. This time, there is no finish line, marker or milestone, but if I am supposed to hang it up at some point, I am sure I will know when that is. And, I know that if this writing is meaningful to you, that you will spread the word. What I also know is that service to others is part of how to live out our Purpose. Shirley Chisholm said, “Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.” Jesus admired and lifted up those who served others. Today, you may be in a job or doing work where you wonder if you are really serving anyone in what you do. Question this no further. You only have to look at the things you do to make the work easier for someone else, or to help them be better in their job, or to provide some relief when others are overwhelmed, or to see that what you do is a part of a team that succeeds and keeps all of you and your families employed and able to keep food on the table and the kids in school. We are all in service of each other if we embrace that attitude and bring it out in our work each day. And for me, it is my privilege and honor to serve you with this continued set of writing.

Have a great weekend!