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 2508: Crizzling Away!

“…so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God…”

I didn’t know the word “crizzle” until I read that it is the word that is to describe how plastics degrade.  Yes, plastics don’t last forever and when they break down that degradation is called crizzle. I was speaking with an entrepreneur recently who was telling me about how things were going with his company, his board and his culture. As I listened I was reminded that no matter how hard we try and how well we think we are doing, what we thought wouldn’t or couldn’t break down, can.  Yes, all that we think we have can crizzle away.  It’s why we must always be building, fortifying, changing and adapting!

A couple of weeks ago, I was honored to be asked to speak in the Sunday services at our local church here in Rhode Island.  After the service a woman came and spoke to me about what was going on in her life and she told me stories of her husband’s job being eliminated, her health failing and their financial situation deteriorating. To listen to her, you would think she was in her own state of “crizzle”, but she wasn’t.  She was, in the midst of it all, growing and getting stronger in her faith!  All around us will crizzle, but not God and certainly not our ability to continue to grow spiritually, right up to our final day.

Reference: Colossians 1:10 (New Living Translation)