Jim Snyder’s Legacy Was Never Meant to Stand Still
Today marks Jim Snyder’s birthday, and it feels like a good time to reflect on the person behind the name The Snyder Center for Project Excellence.
Jim’s contributions to project management are significant. He was one of the founders of the Project Management Institute in 1969, and he founded our own PMI Delaware Valley Chapter (PMI-DVC).
Those are extraordinary accomplishments. But when we think about Jim and the legacy we want the Snyder Center to preserve, we think about more than what he founded.
We think about the fact that he kept showing up.
Jim remained active in PMI and PMI-DVC throughout his life. He attended events, talked with members, supported chapter leaders, shared what he knew, and stayed connected to the professional community he had helped create.
He did not build something and then simply admire it from a distance.
He stayed part of it.
That matters to us.
Grateful for What Was Built
It would be easy to talk about Jim’s legacy only by looking backward, but that doesn’t really capture it.
PMI grew from an idea shared among a small group of professionals into a global organization that has shaped the careers of millions of people. It has given our profession standards, credentials, research, education, community, and a common language for much of the work we do.
PMI-DVC brought that same sense of community closer to home. For decades, our chapter has given project professionals throughout the Delaware Valley a place to learn from one another, build relationships, volunteer, teach, mentor, and sometimes simply figure things out together.
We are grateful for that foundation.
And we are equally grateful that neither PMI nor the profession has remained frozen in time.
Project management in 2026 looks very different from project management in 1969.
It should.
A Profession Willing to Look Forward
Today we are having conversations about artificial intelligence, automation, data, sustainability, new delivery models, changing workplaces, and categories of work that could not have been imagined when PMI was founded.
Some of those conversations are exciting.
Some are uncomfortable.
Most are probably a little of both.
That is what happens when a profession continues to evolve.
One of the things we appreciate about PMI today is its willingness to engage with what comes next. New certifications, new areas of practice, new research, and new conversations do not erase the foundations of project management. They challenge us to think about how those foundations apply in a changing world.
There will be things we question along the way. We should question them.
But an organization that has served this profession for more than five decades must still be willing to ask:
What will project professionals need next?
We think Jim would have appreciated the question.
Curiosity was part of who he was.
Where the Snyder Center Fits
The Snyder Center is not here to recreate PMI.
Jim already helped build that.
Nor are we trying to replace what PMI-DVC provides to our professional community. We are powered by PMI-DVC, and we are proud to be part of the chapter Jim founded here in the Delaware Valley.
Our role is to contribute.
For us, that contribution is education, connection, and creating opportunities for people to keep growing.
Sometimes that means helping someone earn their first certification.
Sometimes it means helping an experienced project leader make sense of artificial intelligence and how it is changing the work around them.
Sometimes it means introducing someone to a new idea, a new person, or a professional pathway they had not considered before.
And sometimes it simply means putting thoughtful people together and giving a really good conversation room to happen.
We do not need to build another PMI to honor Jim.
We need to add something useful to the one he helped create.
Legacy Is Something You Keep Contributing To
There is something important in the fact that Jim continued attending events and participating in this community right up to the end of his life.
He was still interested.
Still engaged.
Still contributing.
There is a lesson in that.
Professional service does not always mean doing something enormous. You do not have to change the entire profession every day.
You can teach someone.
Mentor someone.
Ask a better question.
Share what you have learned.
Open a door.
Show up.
And then do it again.
That idea matters to us as we think about what the Snyder Center should become.
We want to respect what came before us without being trapped by it. We want to preserve Jim’s legacy without treating it as something that belongs only to the past. And we want to stay curious enough to keep asking what the next generation of project professionals will need from us.
That means trying new things.
Sometimes getting things wrong and adjusting.
Listening.
Continuing to learn ourselves.
And being willing to look at what is changing around us and ask where we can make a useful contribution.
Still Building on the Foundation
Jim could not have known in 1969 what project management would look like in 2026.
None of us knows exactly what it will look like 50 years from now.
That is part of what makes his contribution so remarkable.
He helped build something strong enough to last, but open enough to grow far beyond the moment in which it was created.
On Jim’s birthday, we are grateful for that.
Grateful for the organization he helped found.
Grateful for the chapter he created here in the Delaware Valley and continued to support throughout his life.
Grateful for the people who have carried that work forward.
And grateful that there is still room for the rest of us to add something to it.
That is what we hope to do at the Snyder Center.
Keep learning. Keep questioning. Keep opening doors for other people. Keep showing up. And keep contributing to a profession that is still becoming whatever comes next.
That feels like a legacy worth carrying forward.
The Snyder Center for Project Excellence
Where Learning Meets Innovation.