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 2515: Up In Smoke

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“Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.”

Elon Musk didn’t need to go on Joe Rogan’s video podcast.  He certainly didn’t need to partake of Joe’s offering to establish any street cred.  But, he did and now he adds another point of scrutiny to his successes or failures.  I’ve long been the advocate of it not being what we do, but how we go about it doing it is what is the real legacy of our work.  We have been fortunate to live in an age when self-made entrepreneurs have been able to create products and services that will shape our future for ages to come.  The same could be true for those who lived in time of Edison, Graham-Bell and Ford, but what is different today is that we gain access and exposure to them directly through social media and the internet.  We not only experience what, we see how.

God calls us to bigger purpose behind the work we do. Today might not feel like we are running a race, that would be too kind. It might feel like we are stuck on a treadmill that is speeding up on us and with no way off. Today, let me be encouraging that the work we are given to do on this earthly part of our journey matters.  This work is marked by how we go about doing it, which is what sets us apart.  It may feel like one project, a particular job or a relationship with a co-worker or partner, comes and goes, feeling like they are going up in smoke, but the impression and impact of how we go about this work can last and even be indelible.

Reference: Philippians 2:16 (New Living Translation)