company purchased a weekly, Utica Sentinel, in Utica, Michigan. Shepherd became General Manager and turned the weekly into a daily newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. It was sold to Gannett in the late 1960's. Shepherd previously worked for Scripps Howard Newspapers in Cincinnati, Ohio as VP of Operations from 1983 until 1991. He was recruited by Stauffer Communications in 1991 as President and CEO and a member of The Board of Directors. Previously, Shepherd also worked for Panax Corporation of East Lansing, Michigan, and was a member of their Board of Directors. He joined the company in 1968 and headed the sale of the company, in part to Rupert Murdock(Texas newspapers) in August 1980. Shepherd then moved to Houston, Texas where he founded the book publishing company, Pioneer Publishing Company. He sold that company to his partner and took a consulting job with a California publishing company headed by Charles Morris of Morris Publishing in Savannah, Georgia. After the consulting agreement Shepherd joined Scripps Howard in Cincinnati as VP of Newspaper Operations where he stayed from 1982 until 1992. His career spanned the 50's through the 2000s. From hot-metal days until offset and heatset printing. He mastered all 3 processes but empire-building; buying, building, and selling was his forte. His last venture was 21st Century Newspapers, Inc. which employed over 2,000 employees. He was considered an early pioneer in suburban journalism and a leader in "clustering" suburban newspapers into shared printing, sales, and accounting services. He studied rotogravure printing with Axel-Springer in Hamburg, Germany, and build printing plants in South Africa at the behest of the South African Gov't. Shepherd sold 21st Century, in August 2005 for $415,000,000 cash then retired to Charlevoix, Michigan. He is married to the former Beth Louise Lyons(Shepherd) for the past 41 years. In total, his newspaper career spanned 5 decades from the early 1960's until 2005. Notes Newspapers published in Michigan Defunct newspaper companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1995 Companies based in Oakland County, Michigan 1995 establishments in Michigan 2004 disestablishments in Michigan