Owner of the Crystal River Ranch in Roaring Fork Valley, Colorado, she is a strong proponent of conservationism and preservation of the heritage of the American West, and helped implement the legal concept of conservation easements in the state.
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.
[3] As a girl, Sue accompanied her father on the inspections of his oil fields,[4][2] and learned to handle horses, brand cattle, and bale hay from the ranch hands.
She spearheaded the effort to implement conservation easements in Colorado, a legal concept that shields ranchland from future real estate development.
[15] 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.
[16] 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.
[19] In 2013, she received the Russell Thayer Tutt Award from the El Pomar Foundation for "exceptional leadership in the nonprofit sector".