Dick Schneider, Buda Chamber founder, remembered

Community invited to celebrate life of beloved community member

BUDA — The Buda community is remembering Richard “Dick” Schneider, a founding member and the first executive director of the Buda Area Chamber of Commerce, who died in September 2022.

The Chamber and Buda Economic Development Corporation (EDC) were enacted around the same time in the early 2000s, with Warren Ketteman being named as the EDC’s first executive director. For the 11 years Schneider held the position, he and Ketteman helped grow the city from their respective roles while developing a lifelong friendship. The pair, who share the same birthday of March 27, would even joke that they were “twin brothers separated by 20 years.”

Schneider’s influence in the Chamber is still felt today, as it and the EDC remain pillars of Buda’s community and local economy.

“He worked hard. He believed in that Chamber. He believed in the businesses in Buda and what he could do to make it better,” Ketteman said. “Creating a Chamber from nothing where one did not exist and with some of the other things we all partnered on, it was all new. Buda was growing as a city. It seemed like everything we did, or every other thing we did, was something new or different that hadn't been done before. It was a necessity. We had to. We banded together and there was a group of people working hard together. He was part of that group. He was the leader of that group.”

According to John Hatch, longtime Chamber member and current immediate past chair on the board of directors, Schneider was “instrumental” in bringing businesses like Walmart and Cabela’s to Buda, among other projects.

“He set a standard doing what a Chamber is supposed to do,” Hatch said. “Representing the business community, liasoning with the city government and the EDC … He was a great person. He was the person needed at that time to get the Chamber off the ground. I can just see his friendly smile, wanting to see how everything was going.”

In the 2000 census, Buda’s population was 2,400. Two decades later, the population has skyrocketed to more than 15,000. It was the Chamber, EDC and city council’s close ties that made those early days of Buda’s growth so successful, Ketteman said.

“It was a group effort. Everybody was clicking on all cylinders and that spoke a lot to personalities, like Dick’s personality and being able to work with everybody. Being from Chicago and living in Central Texas? ‘Oh, there's no way you can work with somebody from Chicago.’ No, not true. He was great,” Ketteman said. “We worked together well. He worked together well with the city council at the time. Our city council was in lockstep with economic development and the Chamber. If one of the three had a project to get done, guess what? The other two were on board … Cities aspire to that. I look at cities and towns and ones I've worked for and ones I've known that didn't have that. It’s like a three-legged stool: city, chamber, economic development. They've got to work together and we did. And it wasn't just by necessity. We liked one another. There's a difference.”

Those who knew Schneider usually have one similar word to describe him — that he was a “character.” A Chicago native, Schneider “adapted to Texas life” easily and was known as the life of the party who loved birthdays, Halloween, good food and a glass of wine.

His role at the Chamber even brought him to his second wife Barbara Atkinson, whom he met on a Chamber trip to China and married “three years, two months and a day” after their first date. Even after he left the Chamber, he and Barbara remained supportive of its endeavors and stayed involved in the Buda community through other volunteer opportunities like the Onion Creek Senior Center board.

“He loved the city. He would have been so happy to see all the parking spots filled [in downtown Buda] the other night, everybody just having a good time,” Atkinson said.

Everywhere he went, Schneider’s “people person” personality touched many. Today, Buda’s Chamber is an integral part of the city’s culture, something he undoubtedly helped set a precedent for.

“When we were there it was much smaller, but it was as vibrant as it could be. It seemed like everybody knew each other,” Ketteman said. “I think it worked to our advantage, especially with Dick at the Chamber, because we were a tight knit group. We did a lot of stuff together … Everybody knew each other. It was good. Everybody was rowing that boat in the same direction. It was just trying to make the town as best as it could be and that's what it was all about, but it was fun. We had a blast.”

In true Dick fashion, a celebration of life will be held at 11 a.m. on March 25 at the Onion Creek Senior Center in Buda, just two days before what would have been his 84th birthday.

The party is open to anyone who knew him to share memories and celebrate.