ACA’s 45th president advanced redesign of ACA’s electronic data processing and federal advocacy in 1983/84.
12/17/2019 12:00
Leon L. Snyder started his year as ACA International president with a speech titled “The Continuing Challenge of Change.”
By the end of his year leading the association and Board of Directors in 1983/84, Snyder, a longtime member and business owner in the accounts receivable management industry, advanced many initiatives still evident today.
Snyder died Nov. 25 at the age of 95.
“My father was a natural investigator and kept up his license throughout most of his life,” his son, Richard Snyder, told The Baltimore Sun. "As part of his business he would meet people at their homes. He called them credit adjustment calls. He asked the right questions, had an empathy for his clients and tried to get to the bottom of things.”
Snyder started in the debt collection industry after serving in the military and established the Credit Adjustment Bureau of Baltimore Inc. from his home in 1958, according to the article.
Snyder earned the International Fellowship of Certified Collection Executives designation in May 1974 and many awards including Member of the Year in 1978, Charles F. Lindemann Certified instructor Award in 1977, and the Fred Kirschner Instructor Achievement Award in 1980.
For 24 years, Snyder served on the Maryland State Collection Agency Licensing Board.
One of his first orders of business as president in 1983, after his installation at ACA’s annual convention in Seattle, was encouraging a complete redesign of ACA’s electronic data processing offerings to members, according to the book ACA’s First 50 Years.
He also took on many advocacy initiatives, including efforts to amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1978. ACA launched an effort during Snyder’s term to support amending the FDCPA to cover all attorneys working in collections. Snyder joined ACA Executive Vice President John Johnson and member Jack Fletcher, part of the National Legislative Council, when they testified on the amendment before a House subcommittee. Snyder also had extensive experience as the legislative committee chairman for the Seaboard Collectors Association for 15 years before becoming ACA president. He successfully worked for the passage of an amendment to the Maryland collection regulatory law to include attorneys, the first such legislation enacted by any state at the time.
He worked in the industry until he was 82, The Baltimore Sun reports. Snyder, in addition to his son, is survived by grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Picture above, during the 1984 convention awards luncheon in Nashville, President Leon Snyder (right) presented the Unit Activity Award to representatives of the Illinois Collectors Association, left to right, Edwin Burtis, Chicago, 1984/85 unit president; Russell Lawson, unit executive secretary, and Annette Lawson.