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 2672: Returning Home Safely

“Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing,  and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God.

Whenever I see commemoration of it being 50 years since 1969, I am brought back to the moonshot.  Among many parts of the moonshot accomplishment was that when JFK put forward the vision and challenge of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade he didn’t stop there, he also said that we would bring them back to earth safely.  With that one last part of the vision, he instilled humanity into the greatest technological feat to date.  Imagine had he not?  Maybe we still would have gone, but would we have cared as much about the return trip?  How might those words that Neil Armstrong said been different?  We will never know, because this innovation was done the right way.  Where have we missed infusing humanity into what we are trying to accomplish?

Jacob didn’t test God, he just made his own commitment to God and returning home safely was a part of the deepening of that commitment.  Today, we will go out into our workplaces and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with others who will test our faith and we might pray to God that He deliver us home safely today.  And, that is a good prayer to pray.  Not only Lord, deliver us home safely today, but continue to deliver us to your safe home, which we know you are preparing for us!

Reference: Genesis 28:20-22 (New Living Translation)