Retired Alliance Communications General Manager Don Snyders was inducted in the South Dakota Cooperative Hall of Fame on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at the Holiday Inn City Center in Sioux Falls.
Don Snyders succeeded Ralph Schreurs as general manager in 1989. His legacy to the cooperative was making the right decisions at the right time with one ultimate goal in mind: offering members the best services possible at affordable prices.
When Don started as general manager, the company served four communities and approximately 2,500 customers. Local phone service, calling features and cable TV were the company’s core services. In 2015 when Don retired, Alliance had 11,600 customers and served 19 communities. While Internet was the company’s top-selling product, most customers still subscribed to phone and cable TV services.
One of the cooperative’s seven principles is concern for community. Don effortlessly embodied this principle through his interactions with community members and employees.
Customers and employees respected Don because he was an integral part of the community as a whole. He spearheaded many causes that have made area communities a better place to live. Garretson baseball players, for example, have access to one of the best fields in the state as a result of Don’s involvement with the baseball association. He helped raise funds to add a new concession stand, score board, fencing, storage shed and below ground dugouts. He also volunteers multiple hours a week keeping the field and its surroundings in pristine condition.
Even in retirement, he championed an aggressive plan to build a new daycare complex in Garretson, which was experiencing an extensive childcare shortage. Over the past few years, Don spent countless hours helping to secure funding for a new daycare facility along with searching for opportunities to trim costs from the total bill.
Additionally, Don built strong relationships within the Alliance community itself, which made him a leader that was easy to follow. Whether engaging in small talk at the office or publicly addressing employees during company gatherings, he had a genuine interest in the people he was leading. He knew his employees well, along with their spouses and children. He went above and beyond by attending funerals, graduations and weddings for employees and their family members. Employees knew they were fortunate to work for the cooperative because it felt like one large family.
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