Ziggy Snyder, 70, a native of Poland whose nationality was changed three times by World War II, and who was a onetime American military intelligence officer who later developed a reputation as a trade show account executive in Chicago, died Saturday, Feb. 24, in his Lemont home, of complications related to cancer. Mr. Snyder , managed accounts for the United Exposition Service Co. from 1957 until his retirement in 1998. “He said to me it was like having a baby,” said his wife Liz. “When you walk into McCormick Place and it’s just a million square feet of nothing, what you’re doing is bringing in truckloads of stuff.” Once Siegmunt Schneider, the exuberant Mr. Snyder changed his name when he became an American citizen in 1954. Briefly a Soviet citizen after the Soviet Union and Germany partitioned Poland in 1939, he became a German two years later when the Nazis launched an offensive into the Eastern European country. Two years after Poland was liberated by Soviet troops in 1944, Mr. Snyder fled the area disguised as a repatriated Romanian. He sneaked into Austria, and was reunited with his family in the American Zone in Germany. After three years as displaced persons, Mr. Snyder and his family immigrated to Chicago in 1947. In 1952, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and assigned to Germany as a military intelligence officer, and he served in the Army Reserves until the early-1960s. He joined the trade show industry as a decorator after his active military service, and traveled to trade shows around the U.S. and Canada, specializing in setting up and breaking down shows of heavy equipment. Based out of McCormick Place, he also was the long-running show manager for ConExpo in Las Vegas, and the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute Expo and American Machine Tool Association shows in Chicago, among others. In addition to his wife, Mr. Snyder is survived by a daughter, Cyndi Karas and her husband, Jeff; a sister, Rela Hermele; and a granddaughter, Bianca Karas. A memorial service for Mr. Snyder will begin at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Weinstein Family Services Wilmette Chapel, 111 Skokie Blvd., Wilmette.
