History
Steve Schuck has led an incredible life as a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, entrepreneur, and civic leader. After earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Steve taught math and was head football coach at the Manlius School, then a prep school for West Point. After briefly working in manufacturing in New York City, Steve and his wife Joyce moved to Colorado Springs in 1961, to create a new life, ultimately building a career in real estate development through Schuck Communities, now Schuck Chapman Companies.
For more than 55 years, Steve has been a developer of commercial, residential, industrial, and mixed-use projects in multiple markets. His leadership has resulted in more than 50 joint ventures and partnerships, which have led to more than 5,000 residential home sites and 10,000 acres of commercial projects in the Denver, Colorado Springs, Portland, and Phoenix markets. Steve’s competitive drive extended well beyond business and civic engagement, exhibited through athletics, as an avid competitor in tournament handball, golf, and senior ski racing.
As an activist, philanthropist, entrepreneur in both business and public policy, education reform champion, and civic builder, Steve has dedicated his life to protecting and promoting economic and individual freedom, opportunity, and personal responsibility. At the core of his activism, he has established and supported organizations that empower families to choose the schools they think are best for their children, cultivate next generation talent, promote economic development and opportunity, and create strong public policy. One notable example is the Schucks’ creation of Parents Challenge in 2000, a nonprofit that has empowered the parents of more than 3,200 disadvantaged children to choose what they think is the best learning environment for their children through privately funded education savings accounts. Low-income parents have access to scholarships, grants, mentoring, and other educational services that they can use in private, traditional public, charter public, or home schools – they enjoy the education freedom that TSI wants for everyone.
Steve is driven by his passionate belief that, “everyone will benefit when business entrepreneurs apply their real-world experience and talent, developed in the competitive marketplace, to society’s challenges,” which is what motivated him to be a non-politician candidate for governor in 1986. Political office was just one of his means to advance the very same principles now being driven by TSI.
As a testament to his civic service, Steve has had the privilege of receiving a vast array of awards and honors over the years: he was elected to the Colorado Business Hall of Fame and has been named “Citizen of the Year” by the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, the Colorado Association of Homebuilders (in 2022, the HBA gave him its Lifetime of Community Achievement Award, only the 4th in over 60 years), the Urban League, the Board of Realtors, the El Paso County Republican Party. Steve received a medal of merit from the University of Colorado Board of Regents, Step 13’s first Award of Leadership, the David S. D’Evelyn Award for Inspired Leadership from the Independence Institute, the YMCA’s Woodgate Award and the Woodson Center’s Achievement Against the Odds “Pharaoh” Award. Steve and Joyce were chairpersons of the Easter Seals Telethon, and the March of Dimes Mothers March. Together, they received the Lions Heart Award from CSCS, the 2021 Leadership Program of the Rockies Legacy Award, and in 2022, the Pikes Peak Range Riders honored them with its Silver Spur Award.
Steve also received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor Award, the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper’s Freedom of Spirit Award, the Red Cross’ Humanitarian Award, the Mayor of Colorado Springs’ “Spirit of the Springs” award, the Martin Luther King Celebration award from the Southern Colorado Ministerial Union. He was named Honorary Dean of Real Estate by the Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. Colorado Governor Bill Owens proclaimed Oct. 15, 2004, as Steve Schuck Day.
The late Joyce Schuck was “a powerhouse community leader and activist” in her own right, and an “extraordinary woman, beautiful in many ways, bordering on being renaissance.” While raising their three children, Joyce earned a degree in social work from Loretto Heights College and committed her professional and volunteer efforts to supporting at-risk youth, the
homeless, and the disadvantaged.
Joyce took on board leadership roles at the Youth Transformation Center, Colorado Charter School Institute, Community Council of the Pikes Peak Region, Women’s Foundation of Colorado, the Colorado League of Charter Schools, and was founding Board Chair of Colorado Military Academy, Colorado’s first military charter school. She was inducted into the Colorado Charter Schools Hall of Fame as a recipient of their Lifetime Advocate Award.
Joyce co-founded Parents Challenge with Steve, and established programs and volunteer opportunities at Pikes Peak Community College, the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, and El Paso County’s Shape Up Initiative.
Joyce was a published author, having written a book titled “Political Lives, Veiled Lives” in which she chronicled lessons learned from her interviews of wives of elected officials from both parties, ranging from Barbara Bush to senators, congressmen, local officials, and Native American tribe leaders, juxtaposing them against her own experiences during Steve’s two-year gubernatorial campaign.
The Schucks have two sons, one daughter, and as of 2022, six granddaughters, two grandsons, four great- granddaughters, and three great-grandsons.
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