2016 40 Under 40 Yearbook: Dave Snider, 41

Then: Meteorologist, KY3 Inc.
Now: Alaska Weather TV desk program leader, National Weather Service-Alaska Region

When Dave Snider started looking for a new job, he had no idea the search would fulfill an old dream and simultaneously land his family in the Last Frontier.

In 2008, Snider was a meteorologist for KY3 Inc., but serving his viewers at the times most convenient for them meant missing milestones in the lives of his two boys.

When Springfield Business Journal asked the then 33-year-old about his start, the National Weather Service was his first choice. But in the mid-1990s, the service wasn’t hiring. Fast forward eight years and Snider’s dream came true. While he’s still on air, it’s in a very different format.

“I call it gorilla TV; we aren’t set up for broadcast,” says the Alaska Weather TV desk program leader for the National Weather Service-Alaska Region since 2011. “We have a statewide focus and are the only federally operated TV show in the country. The goal is to help Alaskans be aware of public weather.”

In a state where knowing aviation and oceanic conditions are essential for survival, Snider is passionate about what he does because he knows it can mean life or death.

Snider says Anchorage’s diverse community – comprising more than 100 tribal nations – has been good for his boys, now 10 and 13. Besides family and friends, the thing the St. Louis native misses most? Cardinals baseball.

“I haven’t been to a live game in years,” he says. “It’s just not the same on TV.”