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 120: Our Shields

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The security guards that protect our work buildings and protect us throughout the day while we are at work many times are given a badge to wear or stitch onto their uniforms. The badge is the miniature symbol of a shield. The shield is what warriors and knights carried to protect themselves when in battle. We all go to work each day with our own shields drawn that we have created and we carry them around with us all day long. Those shields are made up of sometimes impenetrable emotions and defensiveness. Sometimes they are made up of a routine set of 50 questions we always ask that keep people from asking us something we don’t want to answer. Sometimes our shields will just be our posture and the look on our faces that tell everyone around us that we are not to be approached. Regardless, we all carry our shields. The question is, “are we carrying the shield that God wants us to carry?” In Ephesians 6:16, we are told: “In every battle you will need faith as your shield…”. We all need our shields to make it through the battles and the rough patches that we have with the other people at work. But, we need to be sure that our shield sends the right message to the others at work. In the Sunday School class I teach (4th and 5th graders) we are currently making shields each week and we are decorating those shields with symbols that would represent who we are and what we want other people to see about ourselves. These symbols on shields have throughout time been part of the message to fight off others. When the knight would hold up the shield with the representation of the ferocious lion carved into the metal the other party could not help but be struck by the message of courage and fierceness that was about to come their way. We should all realize that we do the same each and every day and that the shield that others see is reflective of who we are. So, today can we each think about the shields that we put up and ensure that that what everyone else sees is the shield of God’s faith, carved and decorated with the symbols of the Christlike demeanor and attitude that reinforces, not detracts from our purpose.

Reference: Ephesians 6:16 (New Living Testament)