After Shepard left NASA, he served on the boards of many corporations. He also served as president of his umbrella company for several business enterprises, Seven Fourteen Enterprises, Inc. (named for his two flights, "Freedom 7" and Apollo 14). He made a fortune in banking and real estate. He was a fellow of the American Astronautical Society and the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, a member of Rotary, Kiwanis, the Mayflower Society, the Order of the Cincinnati, and the American Fighter Aces, an honorary member of the board of directors for the Houston School for Deaf Children, and a director of the National Space Institute and the Los Angeles Ear Research Institute. Together with the other surviving Mercury astronauts, and Betty Grissom, Gus Grissom's widow, in 1984 Shepard founded the Mercury Seven Foundation, which raises money to provide college scholarships to science and engineering students. It was renamed the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in 1995. Shepard was elected its first president and chairman, positions he held until October 1997, when he was succeeded by former astronaut Jim Lovell.