Clarification of Light Meter Brands, Models and Manufacturers

I would like some clarification on Polaris light meters.
Here are some confusing things about it –
 
§  If you do aninternet search for “polaris light meters” you will find lots of references to "Shepard/Polaris".
§  If you do aninternet search for “Shepard light meters” you will find lots of references to “Shepard/Polaris”.
§  The Aspen Corporation, based in Japan is the manufacturer of Polaris light meters. Yet nowhere on their website do you see any reference to the word Shepard.
§  After searchingtheir website, the Aspen Corporation appears to make only 3 models of the Polaris light meter, i.e.
o      The Polaris
o      The Polaris 2
o      The Polaris dual5
 
§  A recent article(Aug 2015) on another photography web site mentions the Polaris Karat Flash Meter and states that it’s a new model. But there is absolutely no mention of this model on Aspen’sweb site.
§   If you look at apicture of Aspen’s Polaris dual 5 (their newest model) and look at the picture of the Polaris Karat provided on the photography website that mentions it, you will see that these two models are not the same at all.
§  If you download product brochures or catalogs from Aspen’s website and then search them, you will find NO reference to the word Shepard. Absolutely none. 

So my questions are these
1.     What is Shepard? Is it a brand name, a company name?
2.     If Shepard is a brand name or company name, what is its history and relationship with the Polaris brand name and with the Aspen corporation that builds and owns that brand?
3.     Why do you see Shepard/Polaris mentioned so often (e.g. on B&H web site)?
4.     What is this Polaris Karat model? Other than the article I mentioned above, I see no mention of it on Aspen’sweb site.


If you have answers to any of these questions, please provide your source of information with your answer.

This Camera Wiki link will answer some of your questions. Aspen is the manufacturer, Polaris is the product line & Shepherd is the distributor of the product...

camera-wiki.org/wiki/Shepherd

Is this a legit question?  Seems more like potential spam 

Yes, this question is legitimate.
No SPAM here.

The first respondent answered most of my question.
The only thing left is why the Aspen corporation website has no mention of the Polaris Karat model referred to in an August 2015 article on another photography web site.



   

After reading the site provided by screamin scott, I see that Shepherd (I had misspelled it earlier) distributes Polaris brand light meters.

But I have to say that information about the company Shepherd is extremely difficult to find. It may be nonexistent. Since they are a distributor, maybe they believe that they don't need a website or to advertise at all. But I find it more than a little odd that the Aspen corporation, the manufacturer of the Polaris brand of light meter has NO mention of Shepherd anywhere on their website. They could have included a single sentence something along the lines of this "Polaris light meters are distributed (Worldwide, in North America, ?) by Shepherd Distributing." But they didn't.

This is my last post on this topic.

I never learned why the Polaris Karat model, supposedly a new model from Aspen and easily found on retail sites like B&H photo or Adorama or Amazon, cannot be found or mentioned at all anywhere on Aspen's website.
What you can find on Aspen's website is mention of the Polaris Dual 5, which they state is their newest model. Download of a Polaris Dual 5 spec sheet seems to show a publication date of 2009. So maybe the Polaris Karat really is the newest and no information is available from manufacturer Aspen yet.

I suspect I will never really know anything substantial about the mysterious Shepherd company/distributor.