But, before he could serve best, Steve had to learn and earn.  While majoring in psychology at the University of Texas and figuring out how our brains work, he discovered a more lucrative path, how computers work.  It was the era in Texas of oil and gas limited partnerships.  Ernst and Whinny needed better ways to account for their tax consequences.  So, Steve developed software just for that purpose, loaded it on to floppy disks, one for each tax return.  There was no internet then, just an information highway driven at warp speed by 9600 Baud datalinks, and squealing DSL dial phone couplers. 

 

Post college, he sold phone hookups for Lotus OneSource, mostly to investment houses and mutual funds needing market data to value derivatives.  Good business to be in, but not in Texas.  Better in New York, the epicenter of all this financial wizardry.  But, when internet availability went universal, remote batch data entry turned obsolete.  So, Steve migrated to a different kind of digit salesmanship, selling pixels for the biggest name in the business – Getty Images.  If Merck needed photos of healthy kids playing in a park, Steve had plenty of licensed options to sell.

 

With all this new image-making capability, maybe it could thwart identity thievery?  Snap a picture of a shoe marked with a Gucci label, run it through an algorithm, and red light – BAM! – fake!  A high-resolution digital photo to catch even the craftiest counterfeiters.  And that is what LTU Technologies did, and that’s where Steve landed as VP-Sales with his pixel expertise gained from five years with Getty Images.

 

But, after 15 years, Steve had his fill of the Big Apple and wanted change.   Whitepages Inc., based right up the street, needed all the pixel experts they could find to digitize phone books. Steve directed its financial services practice, which pedaled handy look-up applications to banks and their credit research arms.

 

Until two years ago, Steve’s professional world was wrapped in tech.  But then he crossed into a realm of a different sort, a more tangible kind, selling residential real estate for Windermere around Queen Anne Hill!  He’s discovered that selling a digit and selling a house require identical skills – serving client needs and interests and identifying targeted solutions – quickly!   “Five-star agent”, “goes above and beyond”, "local scene expert", and “highly recommend” are snippets from testimonials.  Steve’s truly a good "Shepherd" for anyone seeking a fit in the ever-vacillating local housing market.

 

But terra firma isn’t the only kind of real estate Steve knows well.  He’s an open ocean jet skier.  He’s done many three-hour romps around Caribbean islands, Key West, the Med, and Hawaii.

 

Shout out to Laurel James and Jaime Mendez for bringing Steve into our fold.  Let’s give it up for them, and of course, for our newest member, Mr. Digits, Pixels, and Real Estate - Steve Shepherd.