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 2643: Thick Skin

“I offered my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mockery and spitting.”

Ross Perot died yesterday. He was a billionaire who started Perot Systems and ran for President.  He was many things good and I met him once in Dallas in a supermarket and he was as nice as anyone could be.  What I always marveled about him though was just how thick-skinned he was.  Nothing ruffled him and even when attacked, he was a gentleman.  It takes a thick skin to be as much in the limelight as he was and to not lose what it means to be decent, caring and responsible with your own actions.

Imagine what it was like to be Jesus when He had to take the ridicule, verbal and physical attacks and the demeaning actions that others took to tear Him down.  Like Isaiah, He didn’t break or stoop to the low-level of the others.  He had thick skin and maybe part of what we are to have to be more like Him is our own thicker skin.

Reference: Isaiah 50:6 (New Living Translation)