Oral history interview with Yvonne M. Shepard

Abstract

Yvonne Shepard was born in Puerto Rico and graduated in 1968 with a math degree from Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, an all-women school in Indiana. She accepted a job at Bell Labs as a STA, while a male classmate (from Rose Polytechnic) hired in as MTS. Transferred to Chicago, she did master's work in engineering at Northwestern (graduating in 1976) and became MTS. She discusses several instances of male managers’ attitudes and anxieties about women employees. (She along with Mary Holt and Denise McGrew organized the Men and Women in the Work Environment workshops.) She took up a liaison position for the Bell Data Network, then assumed increasingly responsible managerial and executive positions with the AT&T organization, gaining an executive MBA in 1982 and further training in international business. Shepard became President and COO of AT&T Puerto Rico then worked in AT&T International’s marketing organization. She retired from AT&T in 1999, and pursued consulting assignments with Direct TV of Latin America and Advanta Corporation. Following 2001 she helped lead Hispanics Inspiring Students’ Performance and Achievement (HISPA).

This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”