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 3K3: Where Does It Start?

purposed worKING No Comments

 “and asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver.”

We may be coming to the end of Purdue Pharma and their decades of misrepresentation and coverup of the addictive dangers of their opioids. A couple of years ago I read Beth Macy’s book, Dopesick and got my first understanding of how the company willfully knew that they were pushing their highly addictive drugs and not releasing the non-addictive pain killers.  When reading about it, it sounded criminal and now it has been determined that it was.  The Sackler Family, who owned Purdue Pharma, have experienced the consequences of these actions and while they are far from being bankrupted personally, their reputation and standing will now be listed with others who did wrong and brought great harm to society.  With all of this, we have to wonder, where did the wrong start?  We may never know, but what we can know, is that when we see wrong occurring, at the first hint, we need to nip it in the bud or it might grow and take hold far beyond what we thought could happen.  And like wildfires, once started, are there enough resources to put them out?  Let’s always be on alert so we don’t let something wrong get out of our control.

It’s not lost on me that Judas took the initiative to betray Jesus.  He went looking for a deal for himself.  He spoke first, asking, “How much will you pay me?”.  We have to guard against our own motives, greed and selfishness.  There are always corners to cut, advantages to be gained, loopholes to be gamed and people who can be outwitted, but is that what we want to be?  If you are reading this post, I’d hope you are reading it and saying to yourself, “Whew, that’s not me.”  But, it’s in each of us and we have to guard ourselves from not making that one move or saying that one thing that could start the ball rolling in the wrong direction.  The world wants us to stumble and fail.  God wants to protect us from all of this and more.  Today, let’s remind ourselves through our prayers that we need that protection and constant correction to keep us on the right side. The right side with God.

Reference:  Matthew 26:15 (New Living Translation)