Linda Shepard is the Executive Director of the Leake County Development Association.  She is a graduate of Institute for Organization Management at Southern Methodist University, the six-year program of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the Basic Economic Development Course at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a graduate of Leadership Mississippi.

Linda has served as President of the Mississippi Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives and two terms on the board of directors of Mississippi Economic Development Council.   She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Economic Council.  She is a Past - President of the East Mississippi Tourist Council.

She presently serves on the Workforce Development Council at East Central Community College and the Board of Directors of Metro-Jackson Economic Development Alliance.  With over thirty years of community development experience, she says she enjoys seeing groups of people working together to reach goals that through individual efforts could not be accomplished.