Howard Snyder founded the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation in 1983 with a $20,000 loan to purchase an abandoned fire station. From that rough start, the CDC grew into a powerful force for community engagement, economic reinvestment, and job creation.

"Rarely has one individual played such a prominent role in one community for such a long time as Howard Snyder on Milwaukee's Northwest Side. The Northwest Side Community Development Corporation: A Story of Persistence, Adaptation, and Luck is not only the chronicle of a singular career but a guided tour of our nation's urban policy as it evolved over a period of forty years." -John Gurda, author of The Making of Milwaukee