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 2658: River Power

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“Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

This summer has been devastating to those who live along the largest Midwest rivers as the incessant rain has caused unprecedented flooding.  We had some of those kind of rains here in New England last week and if one ever doubts the power of a river, then just watch what happens when too much goes in, in too short of a time. The same can be said when we overwhelm ourselves with too much of anything.  Too many orders, too many hours, too many deadlines, too many conversations to have, too many emails to answer.  The flood can overtake us.  So, what to do for the floods we know will show again and again?  We have to build up berms, levees and barriers to keep ourselves from going under.  We have to think and plan ahead.  We have to do our best to be ready and to not allow ourselves to get into a place where if the water rises we lose our footing.

I was reading a small book of sermons from the Pastor of BurlPres Church in Burlingame, California.  The name of the book is “Walk Like a Philippian” and it covers a sermon series he did on Philippians last year.  In one of them he used the analogy of the power of a river and even though the mighty Mississippi River becomes wide, deep and powerful, it starts as a trickle from a spring in the ground.  But, what it carries along the way is all kinds of debris, trash, fallen trees, silt and mud. Kind of like the stuff of our lives. What I love about the metaphor is that the river takes all of it away and moves it far from us.  And that is what God does with our problems, trials, sins, challenges, failures and worries.  He washes them away and then takes all of them from us.  We live in a troubled time.  As I write this, I am deeply saddened by the senseless loss of life from the past weekend of mass shootings.  I am also frustrated (and if I am totally honest, I’m angry) that our society does nothing of substance to make changes that will prevent these from further occurring. I wish I knew the answers, but I know that doing nothing is not acceptable.  Yes, God will take all of this and wash it clean, and we have to trust and believe in that.  That is His mighty power, the power of the river.  Let us pray this day for that power to be felt and that we can see these things change and be swept away from us and for God to move us each personally to do what we are supposed to do to be a part of His river’s work to make our world a better place.

Reference: Revelation 22:1 (New Living Translation)