„I love the oceans, they mean the world to me.“
The life of Dr Jens-Peter Schlüter and his wife Betsy has been characterized by shipping and social responsibility. This attitude ultimately led to the foundation of the Jens-Peter and Betsy Schlüter Foundation for Shipping and Environmental Protection with the aim of reconciling shipping and environmental protection. The founders intend to provide ideas and promote developments which serve for shipping and environmental protection, but which in particular ensure sustainable shipping.
Dr Jens-Peter Schlüter was born in 1945 and comes from a ship-owner’s family. In 1975, he joined the shipping company that had been founded by his father Karl in 1950, Shipping Company Karl Schlüter, which he continued to run successfully after his father died in 1994. The tradition-loving ship owner, who is very much acquainted with the history of shipping in Rendsburg, expanded his father’s medium-sized shipping company to become a global enterprise, which ultimately owned 30 ships. His wife Betsy, born in 1957, always supported him.
In 2005, he founded his first foundation and then in 2007 opened the Rendsburg Shipping Archive, which documents the history of shipping in Rendsburg and the development of shipping company Karl Schlüter. In 2007, the shipping company Karl Schlüter had to be sold for health reasons. Still in the same year, Dr Jens-Peter Schlüter acquired two new container ships and enjoyed very much seeing them passing by his office on the bank of Kiel Canal. In 2013, he then decided with his wife Betsy to set up this foundation. Dr Jens-Peter Schlüter died on the 16th of August 2014. His wife Betsy has been actively co-managing the foundation as a member of the Board of Trustees in order to thus give a voice to her husband’s ideas.
