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 2501: Moving Like A Wildfire

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“So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

With where I live in Northern California, it’s becoming not so right to use the expression, “Moving like a wildfire”.  Yesterday when the two big fires up north merged into one, we now have the Mendocino Complex, the largest wildfire in California history burning out of control.  Fire is an interesting and complicated element.  We need it but it is always on the verge of danger and damage. We have these types of people in our companies. They are like fire in that others are drawn to them and they make things happen quickly.  But, they can also be people who leave scorched earth and burnt people in their path. It is tricky business, like playing with fire, on how to handle these people. We need the firestarters.  Without them we miss opportunities to get things going, but we also need the same people to burn not so hot when others can’t get out of their way or keep up.

The burning bush that Moses saw was curious to him.  How could a bush keep burning like that?  What a great metaphor today for us in that God is the fire that can be within us that if we allow, won’t ever burn out.  There have been times in history when His fire burned and spread like a wildfire. Those days are not over. There will be more times when this will happen. Until then, we are the individual fires for Him, burning daily as hotly and brightly as we can!

Reference: Exodus 3:3 (New Living Translation)