Most recently a resident of Kettering, Snide was born on Sept. 24, 1937, in Crooksville, to parents Marie and Amos Snide.
After graduating from Ohio University, Snide served in the U.S. Air Force for two decades, working in various roles, including as a teacher at the Air Force Academy in the department of engineering mechanics, and as a professor and research scientist at the Air Force materials laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
He earned an Air Force commendation (second oak leaf cluster) for his service in Vietnam at the Vietnamese Military Academy, ultimately retiring from the Air Force as a Lt. Colonel before beginning another 20-plus year career as a professor at the University of Dayton.
Snide served in many capacities within UD’s engineering department, including as chair of chemical engineering, and as advisor to the first women’s engineering sorority, Sigma Tau Epsilon.
Snide’s daughter Terri Holman said her father was multifaceted, noting that his analytical side was balanced with an interest in things like poetry and visiting art museums.
“In some ways, he was the typical engineer, but in other ways, he really wasn’t,” she said, recalling the time he introduced one of his granddaughters to the music of Nora Jones. “He was inquisitive, and just wide and varied in his interests.”
Snide took great pride in his work, both in the Air Force and at UD, his family said.
His daughter noted his appreciation for the university in how it intertwined his spirituality with his love of learning.
“I think his years at the University of Dayton were some of the best of his life,” Holman said. “There was a foundation for both education and his personal relationship with the Lord ... He was very proud of the university as a Catholic institution.”
Snide will be remembered by his loved ones for his caring nature and his unceasing appetite for education.
“He was kind-hearted, very bright, and he wanted to learn everything there was to learn,” his wife Frances said Monday.
Snide is survived by his wife of 66 years, Frances (Abruzzino) Snide; his daughter Terri (Tim) Holman; granddaughters Katie Kennedy, Jennifer Holman, and Julia Kennedy; great-grandson William Burns; and many cousins and friends.
Snide’s family will host a visitation from 4 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 5, at Routsong Funeral Home, located at 2100 E. Stroop Road, in Kettering.
A celebration of life will begin at 6 p.m., officiated by Pastor Jim Welch. A reception will immediately follow the service.
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