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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2016)
8A THE DAILY ASTORIAN FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2016 Schnitzer: His only marriage ended in divorce in 2005 Continued from Page 1A The woman That woman is Cory Noel Sause, 37, an executive at her family’s Coos Bay barge and tugboat company. Sause and Schnitzer’s baby emerged from the genetic material of two Oregon busi- ness dynasties. In Portland, the Schnitzer family’s two branches — one in the steel business, the other in real estate — have been outsized players in economic and philanthropic circles for a more than a century. In Coos Bay, the Sause Bros. operation is nearly as old. The family runs a fourth-gen- eration tugboat and barge busi- ness that stretches from Alaska to Mexico. When Schnitzer and Sause decided to try a surrogate preg- nancy, Schnitzer left nothing to chance, employing a contro- versial approach to select the sex of the child. He also took legal precautions. His attorney drew up a contract specifying Schnitzer would not accept just any baby — he’d only take a boy. “Schnitzer hereby relin- quishes any claim to or juris- diction over any female embryo from Sause and any resulting female offspring that might result from the use of Sause’s eggs,” reads the con- tract, dated June 2, 2014. On Dec. 22, Schnitzer’s dream came true: his son arrived. On March 3, that dream turned into a nightmare when Sause challenged him in Mult- nomah County Circuit Court, saying he was violating their contract by denying her par- entage of their son. Filings in that case provide much of the information pre- sented in this story. Parentage in dispute Sause declined to com- ment. Schnitzer, however, sat down for a two-hour inter- view during which he often grew emotional. He proudly displayed cellphone photos of his young son and of himself as a baby. The two are nearly identical. “This is a wonderful story and one people can learn a lot from,” Schnitzer says. Schnitzer and Sause’s experience shows that for peo- ple with ¿nancial resources, science can reduce the uncer- tainty and physical challenges of pregnancy. Despite the sophistica- tion of the boy’s genetic par- ents and the legal precautions they took, however, the issue of the baby’s parentage is now in dispute. That disagreement, pitting powerful family against pow- erful family, may have the trap- pings of private planes, mas- sive ocean-going vessels and multimillion-dollar estates, but at its essence, is still about pri- mal human impulses. grant from Russia, founded the Alaska Junk Co. in 1906 and brought his ¿ve sons into what is now one of the nation’s largest scrap metal businesses, publicly traded Schnitzer Steel, based in Portland. In 1950, one of those sons, Harold Schnitzer, split from the scrap business and started Harsch Investment Proper- ties. By the time of his death in 2011, Harold had amassed 21 million square feet of commer- cial real estate in ¿ve states — the equivalent of 21 Big Pink towers. He also owned 1,000 apartment units. Harold’s widow, Arlene, is a longtime patron of the arts. Her name adorns the city’s best-known concert hall. She and her husband gave more than $80 million to charity during his lifetime. Art, and is a major benefactor of the Portland Art Museum and Oregon College of Art and Craft. In 2014, when Schnitzer gave $5 million toward a new art museum at Washington State University, the school named him commencement speaker and awarded him an honorary doctorate in humanities. Being a dad But Schnitzer says that the accumulation of wealth, art and accolades pales in com- parison to the joy he felt when his daughters were born — and that he wanted to feel one more time, with a son. “I loved the emotion you feel when you have a little baby and they put their little ¿ngers around yours,” he says. “I loved being a dad.” they were in some ways an odd couple. He was a Democrat and a leading benefactor of Jew- ish causes. He belonged to the ultra-exclusive Bohemian Grove club in California and often Àew in his 16-seat Bom- bardier Challenger 300 jet to his home at the Vintage Club in Indian Wells, Calif., where his neighbors include Bill Gates and Charles Koch. Sause, 27 years Schnitzer’s junior, had never been married. A graduate of a Catholic high school and college, she was a Republican living in a small town far from Schnitzer’s West Hills world. A keen dis- tance runner, she kept a low pro¿le, hiding behind over- sized sunglasses in the few pictures available on social media or online. ‘It seems like a really unfortunate situation brought about by new technology and a man harking back to a previous era of male progenitor rules. What can you say? It’s just bizarre.’ Marcy Darnovsky director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, Calif. For Sause, it’s the desire to be a mother to a child whose genes are half hers. For Schnitzer, who already has two daughters, the imperative is to have a son he can raise without interference and who can carry on his family name. Selecting the sex of a baby for nonmedical reasons, although possible, is contro- versial. People who study the ethics of surrogacy are uncom- fortable with Schnitzer’s approach. “It seems like a really unfortunate situation brought about by new technology and a man harking back to a pre- vious era of male progenitor rules,” says Marcy Darnovsky, director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berke- ley, Calif. “What can you say? It’s just bizarre.” Schnitzer Steel Samuel Schnitzer, an immi- Harold and Arlene had one child: a son named Jordan. Jordan Schnitzer inherited his mother’s passion for art. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Ore- gon bears his name, and he owns a collection of 9,500 prints, which have been exhib- ited at 75 museums across the nation. Schnitzer’s board mem- berships and civic contribu- tions are too numerous to list. In 2009, he honored his mater- nal grandparents by donating nearly $2 million toward the construction of Director Park, just west of Fox Tower in downtown Portland. His alma maters, the University of Ore- gon and Lewis & Clark Law School, have heaped awards on him. He spearheaded the reno- vation of the Astoria Column, helped ¿nd a new home for the Paci¿c Northwest College of As a young man, Jordan Schnitzer struggled to prove himself as independent from his family. A toy company he bought in 1981, Northern Specialty Sales, Àopped, causing the loss of about $30 million. In 1989, he bought Casablanca Indus- tries, an electric fan company, for $60 million. The company declared bankruptcy two years later. Eventually, he came back into the family fold, working alongside his father at Harsch’s headquarters on Southwest 11th Street. He’s continued to build Harsch’s holdings across the West. Schnitzer’s only marriage ended in divorce in 2005. Since then, he’s squired a succession of women around town. An odd couple When he and Cory Sause started dating in January 2014, Sause made headlines in 2006 when she was sentenced to 40 months in prison for neg- ligent homicide. In 2004, while she was a student at Lewis & Clark Law School, a very drunk Sause was speeding along South Shore Boulevard in Lake Oswego when she col- lided with another car, kill- ing the driver, a 21-year-old Lake Oswego man, and leav- ing his younger brother criti- cally injured. The man who died in the crash, Patrick Kibler, was an honors student at George Fox University, recently engaged and working part-time as a model for Abercrombie & Fitch. His parents continued to pay his cellphone bill for years so friends could hear his voice. When Sause and Schnitzer met, she’d been out of prison for ¿ve years and coming out of a relationship with Chuck Engle, a Coos Bay man who’s won more marathons than any other runner. Schnitzer had recently broken up with Sally Hopper, a mysterious ex-Play- boy model whom a former boyfriend had accused of being an art thief. Schnitzer recalls their ¿rst date being at the Port- land Brewing tasting room in Industrial Northwest Port- land. “She was lots of fun,” Schnitzer says. Next generations For all their differences, Schnitzer and Sause did share a bond: the desire to create their families’ next generations. Sause recalls in her March 3 court ¿ling that her thoughts were focused on the future: “I had recently turned 35 years old, and although hav- ing a child was not part of my immediate plan, I believed it was in my best interest to freeze genetic material in case I or one of my siblings had dif- ¿culty conceiving a child in the future. I paid OHSU for the retrieval and storage of my eggs.” For Schnitzer’s part, he had two daughters from his marriage. One daughter is in high school and one in col- lege. He was eager to add a son. “I have two wonderful girls, and I thought it might be nice to do some balanc- ing,” he says. “And, frankly, being a divorced dad was complicated. The idea was that I’d have this son without complications.” Schnitzer had already begun exploring less tradi- tional ways of obtaining a son, working with doctors at OHSU to mix his sperm with eggs from an anonymous donor. See SAUSE, Page 9A VOLUN T E E R PICK OF THE WEEK Elliot Senior M edium H a ir Ta bby ca t The sort of ca t you ca n ta lk thing over w ith. See his story on Fa cebook Together, we weathered the storm. On March 9, a storm with hurricane-force winds pounded the Oregon Coast, knocking out power for thousands of customers in Clatsop County. The power line serving Warrenton, in particular, sustained significant damage. We immediately sent out 50 Pacific Power crew members, who worked through the stormy night and the following day to restore power. Thank you for your patience and support while we turned the lights back on. Sponsored by Bayshore Animal Hospital CLATSOP COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER 1315 SE 19th St., Warrenton • 861- PETS www.dogsncats.org Noon to 4pm, Tues-Sat Help prepare for the next storm by downloading our free mobile app. Learn more at pacificpower.net/outage. Saturday Opening Photo courtesy of KOIN6 Coastal Family Health Center Beginning March 19th, 8 AM – 5 PM (503) 325-8315 Located on the 3rd floor of the Park Medical bldg. 2158 Exchange Street, Astoria, OR 97103 Call or Walk in All insurances accepted. Discounts apply for those who qualify. © 2016 Pacifi c Power Seaside AAUW (American Association of University Women) would like to acknowledge and thank all the generous donors who contributed to our Fall 2015 mailing campaign. These funds provide scholarships which allow deserving women and girls to realize their dreams of pursuing their educational goals. 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