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 3K334: The Hex Key

“Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.”

We might better know a Hex Key by the name, “Allen Wrench”.  There really was a William G. Allen who patented in 1909 the idea for a wrench for a safety screw.  And, it seems forever that we have called them “Allen Wrenches”.  That is until IKEA came along and made their Hex Keys so available (be honest how many might you have in a jar someplace?) that the Allen Wrench company called it quits.  Imagine that something you manufactured and got going became so reusable that there wasn’t any need for them anymore?  Hard to imagine, but it can happen.  For the rest of us, we are still trying to find what it is about what we produce or do that will capture the attention of more people than we do today.  We may never create an “Allen Wrench” or its’ equivalent, but we can still strive to unlock our unique place in the market.

God has created billions and billions of us now and still we each are as unique as if He created only one human being. That should encourage us today as we work to stand out among our peers in our work.  He has given us unique talents, skills and experiences that if we seek Him to unlock those for us, His workmanship will marvel others.

Reference: Psalm 139:14 (New Living Translation)