Sue Anschutz-Rodgers

Sue Anschutz-Rodgers (born 1936) the daughter of Frederick and Marian Pfister Anschutz. Farming was part of her family's history, as her great-grandfather, Christian Anschutz, was one of the German farmers brought to Russia by Catherine the Great to increase the yield in the Volga River valley.

Frederick Anschutz began buying up ranches in the 1950s and tapping them for oil reserves, netting him his fortune. She has one younger brother, Philip, a billionaire philanthropist who heads the Anschutz Foundation.

Career Like her father and brother, she is a graduate of the University of Kansas, attaining her bachelor's degree in education in 1955. She began working as a teacher, returning each summer to spend time with her family at their ranch. In the early 1990s, Anschutz-Rodgers created Colorado Rural Philanthropy Days to encourage other philanthropists to fund nonprofits in the rural sector.

In 2003, she and her brother Philip donated $2 million toward a new exhibition gallery at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In 2013 she endowed a $2 million chair in retinal diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. In 2018, she made an additional gift to the Department of Ophthalmology and University of Colorado Hospital which led to the designation of the program as the UCHealth Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center.

Other memberships Anschutz-Rodgers has been an active member of numerous boards at the state and national levels, including the Aspen Valley Land Trust, the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust, the Colorado Conservation Trust, the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, the Denver Police Foundation, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Jane Goodall Institute, the United States office of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy of Kenya, and the National Fish and Wildlife Organization.

Awards and honors In 1997, Anschutz-Rodgers was honored as one of the Denver Women of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Colorado. She was the recipient of the Citizen of the West award of the National Western Stock Show in 2006, becoming the first woman to earn that honor. In 2012, she received the George E. Cranmer Award from Colorado Open Lands for her contributions to land preservation. In 2013, she received the Russell Thayer Tutt Award from the El Pomar Foundation for "exceptional leadership in the nonprofit sector".

In 2008, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.

Personal life Anschutz-Rodgers is divorced and has three daughters.