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 2613: Self-Certification

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“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

What has happened with Boeing and their grounded planes has become more and more concerning. I’ve been trying to keep up with the news and what the investigations are showing. I was reading that one of the problems identified was that the FAA had turned over to Boeing some of the certification process.  Self-certification is nothing new. I remember when I worked at Pratt & Whitney and the FAA and DOD turned over some of the certification processes to the company and at each stage and step, a human being had to sign off that the part or piece that they had manufactured or assembled were made or put together to the exact specifications to pass certification. There was never any question as to these certifications because with each and every signature there was an attesting to safety and the protection of lives that were in the balance. The thing here is that this was hardware. Software becomes much harder to self-certify.  Software creation goes beyond machining or assembling a part.  It can become personal and because our work and identity are so intertwined it becomes hard (nearly impossible) to say, “My software doesn’t work”.  As in many things, we have to make sure that our processes keep up with the technology advancements and the implications from those areas that must be considered just because we are human.

God allows us to daily self-certify with Him.  Each day we are taught and challenged to examine ourselves and continue to have our old self die as our new self in Christ lives and grows. We must always be asking ourselves where are we falling short and how are we self-correcting and allowing God to work through us. If we pay attention today to the areas that we feel like we are being tested, it may be that these are the areas where we need to do some more self-certification work.

Reference: Galatians 2:20 (New Living Translation)