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 2449: When Z Eludes Us

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“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

I was/am a Sue Grafton fan.  I was first introduced to her writing when my best buddy from college told me that his Aunt and Grafton were close friends and the book “B is for Burglar” had a lot of references and locations of his family.  That was 23 books ago in her series of books that started with a letter of the alphabet.  Her most recent book was “Y is for Yesterday”. Sadly, this was her final book before she died so there will never be a “Z is for…”.  We can never be guaranteed that we will reach the end of the series of activities or events we have planned. Someone doesn’t have to pass. It could be that our competition thwarts us with something new.  Or, we have a change of leadership who decides that it’s time to discontinue a product line or service. Or the key person leading an effort decides to leave the company.  What we start, will seldom be what we continue to do in the future.

just as improbable is that we will always stay in the same job or company, or location.  We certainly won’t work with the same people all of our career.  We might even change what we do a few times.  The point is that whatever our definition of “Z”, it will be hard to achieve, if we do. The only finish line we can count on is the one that is promised to us by God.  Because of these eternal assurances, we can and should, approach today with the energy and passion as if we intend to finish strong and well.

Reference:  Matthew 25:21 (New Living Translation)