Pictured above: Coby and Sande dressed as an African photo safari scene for Halloween; Sande and her best friend, Catherine, after finishing the Richmond Marathon. (She did it to mark her 50th birthday year.)

Catching Up with Sande Snead is No Easy Task — But Well Worth It!

By Terry Haycock

With this series of member profiles, we hope to enhance our knowledge of each other on personal as well as professional levels.

Beautiful crisp, clear autumn days are perfect for cleaning out a house on the river, preparing to close it for the winter, and putting the boat in temporary dry dock. That’s what Sande Snead was doing on a recent Saturday when I caught up with her for a phone interview. Sande, her boyfriend, Martin, and Coby, a yellow lab, had also just moved to a new house in Richmond, so I felt very lucky to share a few minutes of her time. An independent consultant for Rhudy.biz and account supervisor for Pulsar advertising agency, Sande is a long-time VPC member who credits current president Julie Grimes for her membership.

To keep her life in balance, Sande is into fitness so much that she arises a 5 a.m., runs, and works out with her X-Team members whose comradery and diversity provide a delightful circle of friends. All that before a morning cup of coffee! She got into running after her daughters (now 30 and 27) were born; her weight was good, but she wasn’t strong. By 40, she started running with friends, going on to include a 10K, half-marathon, and marathon in her athletic repertoire. “These were once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” Sande said. “I’m big on those!” Other one-time excursions include sky diving (at 18), scuba diving, and mountain biking.

A Richmond native, Sande graduated from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and lived in Fresno, California, and Columbia, South Carolina, before returning to Richmond. Asked what she liked about living in different places, she said that it provided opportunities to “reinvent” herself and find new friends, new interests, and lots of new places to explore. In Fresno, it was a mom’s club, in Columbia, at Toastmasters.

Sande and Martin’s recent travels have included a Baltic cruise where in Denmark she was impressed to see employees dressed in business suits riding bicycles to work, and Russia, where they visited Catherine’s Imperial Palace. They also experienced St. Petersburg — “huge, towering, and very modern.” In 2018, they took an amazing African safari.  More of those one-time adventures.

Sande likes to read at the end of the day, summer at the river or beach, and enjoy good food and wine. With her positive, sunny personality and diverse background, spending time with her is delightful. Seek her out at the November 2 conference. You’re sure to enjoy the experience.