William T. Snyder earned the BS from UT in 1954 in mechanical engineering, and the MS (1956) and PhD (1958) from Northwestern. He served on the faculties of North Carolina State and SUNY Stony Brook before joining the faculty at the UT Space Institute as associate professor of aerospace engineering in 1964. In 1970, the same year he was promoted to professor, he became chairman of the UT Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, a position he held until he was appointed dean of the College of Engineering in 1983. While dean, he also served as acting vice chancellor for academic affairs and was appointed UT chancellor in 1992, a position he held until 1999. Although he has honors and publications in the field of engineering, he is perhaps best known locally as the house organist of the Tennessee Theatre, where he began to play the Mighty Wurlitzer in 1975.