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 249: College Recruiting

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This is the time of the year when companies start to gear up for their college recruiting. Company recruiters start scheduling their fall on-campus visits and lining up those in the company who are going to travel to conduct the first interviews and make the night before interview company presentation. The best people to take these trips are alumni of the university or college where the recruiting is going to happen. When an alumnus can be matched up with his/her alma mater two good things happen. First, the students have the opportunity to meet someone who they can project being just like them. When a student sees and hears the story of someone succeeding who started in the same place that they are now, it says to them that this is a company where they can also succeed. Secondly, it does wonders for the alum who travels back, tells her/his story, remembers when she/he walked in the shoes of the students being met, and gets to brag a little about the company and their own career. It’s hard to not feel good about going back to your alma mater and being there to help students move to the next positive step in their lives. Those who get a chance to recruit off of their own college campus usually come back from those trips energized and hopeful about the future. Getting back to where we started from can do that to us. When we are able to walk the paths we once traveled and recognize how far we have come, it makes us appreciate the instruction and learning that we received and I believe, it can reorient and reground us if we have strayed away from the path we we are supposed to be pursuing. I think back on the lessons learned from my youth and the lessons taught to me that I have remembered and the ones I ignored (and shouldn’t have) and it makes me reflect on how important it is to take in and receive the advice and instructions that is there for us if we choose to accept it. We learn in Proverbs 19:20: “Get all the advice and instruction you can, and be wise the rest of your life.” Sometimes it is good to reflect on the lessons taught to us long ago and reapply those in our lives today. As we go about our work today, let’s think back on the the lessons taught to us from wherever we “started from” and check in with ourselves to where we are still firmly rooted and where we have drifted. Giving it the “old college try” may be what you need to do today to get over something that has been holding you back or dragging you down.

Reference: Proverbs 19:20 (New Living Testament)