Susan Polis Schutz (born May 23, 1944) is an American poet, filmmaker and businesswoman who co-founded the greeting card and book publisher Blue Mountain Arts. She is the mother of

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Governor

Jared Polis Jared Schutz Polis ( ; ; born May 12, 1975) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 43rd governor of Colorado since 2019. He served one term on the Colorado State Board of Education from 2001 to 2007, and five terms as the Unite ...

Early life and education

Schutz was born in

Peekskill, New York Peekskill is a city in northwestern Westchester County, New York, United States, north of New York City. Established as a village in 1816, it was incorporated as a city in 1940. It lies on a bay along the east side of the Hudson River, across fr ...

, and is the daughter of June (née Keller) and David Polis. Her grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Schutz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from

Rider University Rider University is a private university in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, United States. It consists of three academic units: the Norm Brodsky College of Business, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which includes Westminster Choir Coll ...

in 1966, where she studied English and biology.

Career

After earning her undergraduate degree, Schutz worked as a teacher and social worker in the

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. She also took graduate courses in psychology and worked as a freelance writer for local publications. In 1986, she published ''To My Daughter With Love on the Important Things in Life,'' through her company Blue Mountain Press. It is a book of

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

dedicated to her daughter. Stephen Schutz, Susan's husband and Jordanna's father, designed and illustrated it. Schutz and Blue Mountain Arts came to wider attention with the founding, in 1996, of the bluemountain.com website. One of the earliest experiments with the electronic greeting card medium, the site was widely adopted by web users. In 1999, the dot-com venture

Excite@Home @Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their fir ...

bought bluemountain.com in a deal valued at $780 million. The 1999 price paid for bluemountain.com became an example of what was later seen as the excesses of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

: the website was sold again in 2001, to greeting card company

American Greetings American Greetings Corporation is a privately held American company and is the world's second largest greeting card producer behind Hallmark Cards. Based in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland, the company sells paper greeting ...

, for just $35 million in cash. Schutz is the executive producer and director of the documentary film ''Anyone and Everyone.'' The film featured the coming-out stories of gay sons and daughters, and their parents and premiered on KPBS public television in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, in August 2007, before being scheduled to air on a number of other public television stations in the United States. Her latest film, "Love Wins Over Hate", was released in 2020. The film, released months after the

George Floyd protests The George Floyd protests were a series of protests, riots, and demonstrations against police brutality that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. The protests and civil unrest began in Minneapolis as Reactions to the mu ...

, attempts to " ncoverthe origins and complexities of hatred in America." In a series of interviews with several white men who had previously held beliefs of

white supremacy White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...

, Susan aims to examine how the men were able to change and overcome their racism over the course of the documentary. The film was released on October 7th, 2020 to positive reception.

Personal life

Schutz has two grandchildren through her son Jared and son-in-law

Marlon Reis Marlon Reis (born July 1, 1981) is an American animal rights advocate, writer, and the first gentleman of Colorado. He is married to the 43rd governor of Colorado Jared Polis. He became the first same-sex List of current United States first spous ...

References

External links

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Blue Mountain Arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schutz, Susan Polis 1944 births Living people American Reform Jews American businesspeople American women poets American people of Russian-Jewish descent People from Peekskill, New York Writers from New York (state) 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American poets Rider University alumni