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 2838: Happy Juneteenth

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“For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

On this day, in 1865, the state of Texas began celebrating Juneteenth, in honor of the emancipation from slavery in the state.  I first learned of “Juneteenth” in 1988 when I joined Frito-Lay, which was headquartered in Plano, Texas.  It wasn’t a company holiday, but those who worked in Headquarters would talk about it and later when I was transferred to Plano to work, it was part of the cultural activities of the Dallas area.  The question I asked myself back in the late 80’s and I still ask myself now is,  “why didn’t I know about Juneteenth while growing up”?  As far as I can remember, it was never taught in our history lessons in grade school, middle school, high school or even in my liberal arts college degree. What we teach, we learn.  What we learn, we pass on.  What we pass on gets passed on to others. Do that enough times and things get remembered and become important.  Today, a number of companies have added Juneteenth to their annual holiday schedule.  I hope more do so that the next new employee who grew up not being taught, still has a chance to learn.

Juneteenth celebrates freedom.  True freedom, as we know, is only in Christ.  Jesus brought that freedom to all, without any distinction.  Any limiting of the freedom that He wants for us, comes from our own doing and our own limiting and discrimination.  On this day, let’s celebrate Juneteenth by asking God to challenge us, reveal to us, and show us the way for us to live out to others the freedom He brings so that others brightly see Him in shining through us.

Reference:  2 Corinthians 3:17 (New Living Translation)