Major General Donald W. Shepperd, USAF (Ret.) is president of The Shepperd Group, Inc. He performs independent consulting on defense, strategic planning, executive leadership, information technology and visioning and preparation of executive teams for the 21st century. He is a well known speaker and author. He retired in 1998 from the Pentagon as head of the Air National Guard where he commanded over 110,000 personnel, 1400 aircraft, 88 flying units, and 250 support units spread throughout the 54 states and territories. He oversaw preparation and execution of a $4.2B yearly budget. He worked daily with all the Air Force Major Commands and Congress. He testified to Congress in support of Air budgets. He served as part of the Air Force Council and was on the Board of Directors of the Air Force Long Range Strategic Plan. He was the architect of the highly successful "CyberGuard", a program to bring the Air National Guard into the world of high technology, embedded information systems and fiberoptic networks with distributed communications and distance learning capabilities. He is a combat veteran who flew 247 fighter combat missions in Vietnam. General Shepperd is a military analyst for CNN and provides military commentary for ABC radio in New York and Baltimore. He has recently been seen and heard providing commentary on the military aspects of the war against terrorism in the Mid-East, Iraq and Afghanistan. He lives in Tucson, AZ, serves on several boards and was an ad hoc member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy class of 1962 and holds a Masters degree in Personnel Management.

Don Shepperd is an entertaining speaker. He talks plain, straight and simple about the vexing problems of leading people in organizations of all sizes. He has been "in the trenches," as a combat fighter pilot; a line worker; a salesman; a sales manager; a supervisor; a sector vice president; a president; and a CEO. He is a raconteur. He tells stories. He entertains and teaches. He has been called a "Renaissance man"; a "Will Rogers"; a "Visionary" - he talks about the past, the present and the future with examples and first-hand experiences from the "real world".