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 2898: Occupational Safety And Health

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“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.”

Last week, the United States celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.  I have worked with, and around OSHA my entire career and had you asked me how long it had been around, I would have guessed since the early to mid 1900’s.  Well, do the math and you will see that OSHA was only formed in 1971.  That means for 195 years of our country there wasn’t oversight of safety and hazards on the job.  Now, I know there are some who are reading this and likely thinking, “Imagine how much easier it was to do business before OSHA”.  That’s okay to think that, but likely none of us thinking that had to work under pre-OSHA requirements in occupations where our lives were at risk every day.  My first exposure to OSHA was when I was a welder in the summers of college (early 80’s…only a decade or so into OSHA). I remember some dangerous situations and some accidents that happened to others that I’d rather forget. The one that sticks out was the toppling of a crane that killed the operator.  The final determination was that someone had cut a safety corner, which resulted in a large fine from OSHA and more stringent precautions in the future.  I remember that incident because I could see that without the regulations, that the same accident would have likely happened again and again.  We are humans and we are expected to be overly productive and sometimes without boundaries we will push ourselves and machines to a place where we put ourselves and others in danger.  It’s in our makeup and like in our lives when we were being parented, some boundaries, some rules, some consequences turned out to be good for us in the long run.  We might have hated those actions then, but years later, we have come to appreciate that discipline was what we needed.

The Bible says it just like it is, “No discipline is enjoyable when it is happening.”  But, we know that discipline can be good for us, if we only accept that it can make us stronger, keep us safer, and build our character for what the future might throw at us.  We might be in a season of disciplining right now,  or it probably feels like we are, so let’s look past the pain or lack of enjoyment and look for the good that can come from the readiness and preparation.  Sometimes, it is the discipline that brings out the best in us.

Reference: Hebrews 12:11 (New Living Translation)