In support of Visa’s Olympic sponsorship, a program was needed that illustrated that using your Visa card actually helped the athletes competing at the Olympic Games. In his formative years at Visa, Shepard helped develop and oversaw The Visa Gold Medal Athlete Program for the US Ski team and formed the first-ever USA Decathlon Team with USA Track and Field. This program combined sports science support, high level coaching, and motivational elements from former Olympic heroes to drive Olympic success for US athletes. It resulted in putting numerous US Athletes on the podium, allowing Visa to showcase its actual support for the athletes of the Games in above the line advertising programs and at the point of sale. It was a model for the cooperation between the Federations and a commercial partner that stands today as the gold standard.