“Let’s Go”: Honoring Steve Snyder’s enduring presence

Steve Snyder feeding the evaporator in the sugar house at Gould Farm. Photo from Berkshire Edge by Hannah Van Sickle.

It’s a personal joy to write something about Steve as I ponder the more than three decades of service, creativity, mischief, and love that he’s poured into this place as he prepares to leave his role. And as many of us know, you never really leave Gould Farm. Gould Farm tends to go with you, wherever you are.

While Steve is stepping away from his full-time role leading forestry and grounds — or as we now know it, campus crew — and relocating nearby, he’s not truly leaving. He’ll return this fall in a part-time capacity, which feels right. It’s hard to imagine Gould Farm without him. Still, this marks a significant moment in the Farm’s timeline. As far back as I can remember, Steve has been getting up at midnight to stoke the fire in the Sugar Shack by the pond during maple sugaring season. When people like Steve move on, much like the old Sugar Shack itself, they become part of the Farm’s memory — and in doing so, they make space for others to step in. (Take the new sugaring and wood shack tucked in the woods behind the pond — hardly a shack at all, now equipped with a reverse-osmosis machine, a new step in our syrup-making process, thanks to Steve!) Moving on is a beautiful and necessary cycle on the Farm.

And despite the necessity of the cycle, it still feels like a curious loss, especially when a memory-keeper like Steve shifts his attention elsewhere. Time behaves in a funny way at the Farm; we have our daily rhythms so that each day blends into the next; you might glance up from your work and realize a year has gently gone by. When I think of Steve, I picture him coasting by me on the road, one hand on his bike handle, the other free, his head turned in greeting, often with a deeply honest question or shrewd observation on his mind. What is the Farm without that timeless, oft-repeated exchange?  

It never ceases to amaze me how Gould Farm doesn’t rest on the shoulders of any one person. The social experiment that is the Farm seems to hold us, invite us in for a time, however long our time might be – a day, a year, a lifetime. No matter how brief or long our interludes, the Farm is a steady hum of comings and goings. But some people do seem to shape the culture here in ways that linger long after their daily tasks are done. Steve is one of those people.

Steve Snyder. Photo by Steph Otter.

He’s the kind of person who showed up with a piece of dark chocolate or a hug just when I needed encouragement, who surreptitiously refilled the tea station with unexpected flavors, who peered over my shoulder in my office to make an exact observation helping to clear my muddied mind – he’s someone who often challenged me to pause and see things in a new way, who reminded me always to look with wonder. And I know I’m not alone.

I reached out to a few folks to share their stories about Steve to help reveal just how much of Gould Farm’s heart he has tended over the years. I hope these memories help you to pause and see Steve as he’s always helped us see the world: with curiosity, humor, and open-hearted attention.

Adventurer and mischief-maker

There’s something unforgettable about the way Steve pulls you into the unexpected. Not with grand declarations, but with a quiet grin and canoe paddles in hand.

As one current staff member put it:

Steve Snyder is the kind of person who appears when you least expect him and says, ‘Let’s go.’ And you go. Because of course you go.

One night, the same staff member was headed home from Main House at 10 p.m., thinking about the couch and a bowl of ice cream, when suddenly he found himself racing down a dirt road on a bike with no lights, Steve beside him, the moon their only guide. And that wasn’t the only wild adventure:

It’s winter—full winter, not some light dusting—and Steve has somehow convinced two dozen guests and staff to haul up to Benedict Pond in the dark, where he drags a picnic table onto the frozen surface and lights a bonfire. On the ice. People wonder, is this safe? But we trust in Steve and it's a blast.

Another Gould Farmer holds her own treasure trove of Steve memories. She still remembers looking out the window and seeing an impossible sight:

My jaw dropped when I looked out the kitchen window at Rosemary's Cottage and saw Steve flying down the icy road on crutches when he broke his knee in the middle of winter one year. He was winging by faster than a normal person could run and had a plastic garbage can taped to the side of one crutch so he could still carry wood into the house. He also decided that the best way to get down the steep hill to his house the first night after he broke his knee was to sled through the trees in the pitch dark.

And the time he ended a high-stakes capture-the-flag game like something out of a movie:

And who could forget the epic end to the 2016 (ish?) capture the flag [game] where he appeared out of nowhere, riding his bike from behind a dune in the gravel pit, someone threw him the flag as they were being shot down, he caught it with one hand and flew off down the road. We all trooped back up to Main House and sat around while he biked the long way around the entirety of Gould Farm's 700 wooded acres and turned up late for dinner, the game long over, legs scratched up, still with the flag in hand.

There’s mischief in Steve’s kindness and joy in his daring, the kind of joy that expands an ordinary day into something slightly offbeat and eye-opening.

Caretaker and culture keeper

While Steve’s legacy is partly about high-energy adventures, it has its foundation in the rhythms, rituals, and relationships that make the Farm tick.

In a recent letter to our board, announcing his retirement, Steve was referred to as “culture keeper”:

His contributions are woven into the fabric of Gould Farm — from stacked wood and syrup competitions to clean, orderly spaces. But most of all, he’s a relational glue. He listens and learns what’s important to each of us and connects in deeply personal ways.

His presence makes others feel grounded. He has a habit of lightening meetings with wry humor, or singing a half-joking song to highlight something practical — like cold butter. As one former staff member shared:

[I recall] that when we were new and [my husband] was opening up the kitchen and getting breakfast ready early one morning, Steve came through and the butter for the toast had been put out cold from the refrigerator, so he started singing a song he made up about how maybe the butter should be put out first so it has a chance to warm up before breakfast starts. And after morning meeting [my husband] went and talked to him about how he would prefer Steve to come talk to him directly about something he wants done differently and that singing a song about it was passive aggressive. And Steve said, ‘I know how I am!’ and walked out the back door.

Even his anger, when it shows, is tethered to care. After a tree fell on his home and workers cleared a path through the woods, Steve returned to find more trees down than necessary.

[I remember] when the tree fell on his house and they had to get big machinery down the hill to fix it and he hand-selected a route through the woods they could use that would mean chopping down the least number of trees and then he came home at the end of the day and saw that they had chopped down ALL the trees and he was furious and called them a bunch of orcs.

Observer of people

Steve doesn’t just notice the land — he notices you. And he remembers, as Lisanne, current executive director, emphasized in a touching personal story:

Early in my time here, I referenced my father, Jack, in a conversation with Steve. He was inquiring about influences on my leadership and management style. I shared that I had worked with my father in a warehouse in Paterson, New Jersey for a couple of summers when I was in high school. There I observed my dad's style, interacting with people from all different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds. He was accepting and patient, and treated all with dignity and a fair hand. While my dad passed away in his prime, I told Steve I valued having learned so much from him. Steve thought I was a chip off of my dad. Over the years, he would reference ‘Jack’ in conversations...‘you handled that just like Jack’, ‘thank you, Jack’ and the like. What a gift to have someone connect with me in such a deeply personal and also professional way. Steve sees people. He sees us, sews a thread of connection and he weaves community again and again. He is a real gem.

Another current staff member added:

Steve loves birthdays, other people's birthdays. Maybe he'll swing by with a chocolate bar or just light up when he sees you, like your existence is good news. He is deeply curious about how other people experience the world, particularly when your experience differs from his own; like the experience of being a parent or knowing how iPhones work. He notices things you think no one sees, and then he says something kind and true about it. Not because he has to. Because he means it. That's Steve.

As one former staff member described, even in tense meetings, Steve’s instinct is to pause, consider, and lead with curiosity.

Steve was sitting in the corner being quiet. The director asked him for his input and he held up the manila folder he had been doodling on. ‘I drew an octopus. There are so many different sides to think about.’ I was furious because I knew people would listen to him and that he and I were in agreement about what should happen. He should just say it! But one of my favorite things about Steve is that he is committed to seeing every side of an issue and leading with all the ways his own perspective may be compromised and biased.

Teacher and builder

Ask anyone who worked alongside Steve, and you’ll hear stories of both growth and generosity. A former volunteer who worked with Steve for a year learned more than just how to use tools:

As a volunteer work crew leader, I learned many things from Steve, including chainsaw maintenance, the cider house rules, and mini-tractor piloting. He was great at inviting me into new projects: to build a new trail that he’d had his eye on for a while; to make use of the brand new, bigger chainsaw he bought for us; to improve the Farm’s trail map. 

Many were the times I was out on a run or a hike and he would pop up on his bicycle, tooling around areas I would not even have attempted on a bike.

This same former volunteer saw in Steve a kind of mythic energy, reminiscent of The Wind in the Willows:

Steve Snyder ice skating on the Main House pond, dragging some Farm kids around on a shovel. Photo by Ellen Russo.

Steve reminds me of Water Rat in The Wind in the Willows, and not just because he’s lanky. He is perpetually industrious, working around the edges of whatever’s going on to quietly enable the activities of others. He’s kind and quite discerning, with a real gift for discovering tasks matched to guests’ capabilities on a given day. His character seems marked by intense loyalty to the Farm and commitment to the good of its inhabitants; I have not known many who could be so thoroughly helpful with difficult stuff in one-on-one conversations. I only had a few opportunities to see him paddling in a canoe like Ratty—and never got to see him kayak around after the whole valley flooded—but I did watch him care for the ice of the Farm’s pond, and saw his joy and freedom in skating on it. Also, I sometimes think he has glimpsed the Piper at the gates of dawn.

Carried in the current

In the river that is Gould Farm life, Steve has been a remarkable fellow traveler and leader — able to shift calmly when the rapids were rough, trolling lazily when the river widened, and always willing to paddle up alongside you for a chat, to connect your watercraft and float for a while. As a staff member on the leadership team pointed out,

Steve has been a steady and humble presence for nearly 1/3 of Gould Farm's existence. His legacy will live on in the daily rhythms that support life at the Farm.

He’s shown us how to make work feel like play, how to see people as more than their roles, and how to let curiosity guide connection even when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient. He has helped raise our kids, sweetened our days, and widened our eyes to the beauty and strangeness around us. Who could number the flowers he has watered, the blankets he has laundered, or the fallen trees he has cleared?

Here’s a small glimpse of the gratitude we feel for you, Steve—blessings pulled from the Thanksgiving blessing box, read aloud one year in your honor:

I am thankful for Steve Snyder, who clears the TV satellite dish so we can watch TV when it snows.

I am thankful for Steve Snyder and his dry sense of humor.

I am thankful for Steve Snyder.