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 353: Behind The Password

purposed worKING 1 Comment

The idea of a having a “password” has been an interesting transition over the last 30-ish years. Before computers, voicemail, email, websites, etc. passwords were those things that you whispered through the door of a clubhouse, or were reserved for military or clandestine activities. Not that long ago, you didn’t really need any passwords but today we have to keep lists of our current passwords handy so that we can function and stay connected. With a password comes a sense of security and also somewhat a sense of secrecy. In the office every IT person will make sure that we all know that our passwords and what we do on the companies network is not secret and cannot be done without the knowledge that someone else is watching. Even so, in my career I have had to deal with more cases than I want to remember of people who misuse their company computer or the company’s network and when caught, they thought that because they were behind a password or different alias they had created for themselves, that they were safe to do whatever they wanted. Suffice to say that in today’s technology world, there are no secrets and no password or on-line identity can be hidden or is totally secure. This is a good lesson to apply to our lives as well. There are no secret from God. Sometimes we think that can cordon off parts of our lives and place our own secret passwords in place and get away from God, but that’s not the way it works. God sees through all of the passwords and aliases. He can see across our thoughts, desires, actions, and our hearts. In Romans 2:16 Paul says to us; “The day will surely come when God, by Jesus Christ, will judge everyone’s secret life”. Let’s not try and live or work behind a password that we think can keep God out. With God, we have no secrets and who we are, regardless of our faults, is who He wants to know. Today, let’s think through the parts of who we are that we have tried and place a password over and see if you can’t start removing those, one by one.

Reference: Romans 2:16 (New Living Testament)