Daniel Snyder - Early Life

Early Life

Snyder was raised in a Jewish family in Maryland. His father, Gerry Snyder, was a free-lance writer who wrote for United Press International and National Geographic. His first job was at B. Dalton bookstore at the age of 14.

At 17, Snyder experienced his first business failure when he partnered with his father to sell bus-trip packages to Washington Capitals fans to see their hockey team play in Philadelphia. He was disappointed when he found his fliers littering the streets after a tough loss.

By age 20, he had dropped out of the University of Maryland, College Park and was running his own business, leasing jets to fly college students to spring break in Fort Lauderdale and the Caribbean. Snyder claims to have cleared US$1 million running the business out of his parents' bedroom with a friend and several telephone lines.

Snyder courted real estate entrepreneur Mortimer Zuckerman, whose US News & World Report was also interested in the college market, and who agreed to finance his push to publish Campus USA, a magazine for college students. Zuckerman and Fred Drasner, co-publisher of Zuckerman's New York Daily News, invested nearly $3 million behind Campus USA. That venture could not generate enough paid advertising and was forced to close after three years.

Despite the collapse of CampusUSA, Snyder began to pursue WallBoards, an advertising venture designed to reach "targeted populations" with the backing of Drasner and Zuckerman.