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 278: Girl Scout Cookies

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While I am on vacation, I have asked friends, and encouragers of Purposed worKING to contribute. Today’s post comes from Jason Johnson, an entrepreneur, technology executive and Chairman of Tedx San Francisco

Typically we spend more of our waking hours with our coworkers than we do with our family or close friends. Then, suddenly, either a coworker leaves the company or we leave the company, and our interaction with our coworkers is reduced to an occasional phone call, email, or maybe a cup of coffee. The opportunity to spend frequent hours with our coworkers is lost, and so is the opportunity to ‘give’ of ourselves. In years past, a coworker might approach me and ask me to buy Girl Scout cookies or donate to a cause they are raising money for. At such times, I might find myself saying “sorry, I’m training for a triathlon, no cookies for me” or “sorry, I’ve already agreed to sponsor Kevin in accounting”. Then a few years back, I heard a sermon on the radio from Jack Hayford in which he stated that when someone asks him for something – in his desire to follow the teachings of Jesus, Hayford seeks to give at every opportunity. When reflecting back to my former places of employment, I can’t help but think of lost opportunities ‘to give freely’ to my coworkers and show them that I celebrate (and demonstrate) my recognition of the blessings bestowed upon me through the action of giving freely. Hopefully by way of the new social media tools, we may all have the opportunity to connect with some of our former coworkers, and be given the chance once more, to ‘give freely’ to those who need to know where all blessings come from.

Reference: Matthew 10:8 (New Living Testament) “Give as freely as you have received!”