Ernest C. Jeppsen was born July 24, 1903 in Mantua, Utah. He received two bachelor’s degrees from Utah State University: one in Mechanic Arts and another in music. While employed as a high school teacher in Utah, he earned his master's degree in Industrial Education from Colorado State College by spending his summers studying there.

Beginning in 1947 Jeppsen was employed by the Institute of Inter-American Affairs in Panama. He remained in Panama until 1952 working to create vocational education programs in the field of building construction and industrial technology. In 1953 he began work for the U.S. Government in the education training branch of the Near East and African Development Service (NEADS) of the Technical Cooperation Administration. In this job Jeppsen worked from Washington D.C. to develop vocational schools in many developing countries. Following a short stint working for the Office of European Economic Cooperation in Paris, France, Jeppsen spent the rest of his career working either as a consultant or professor for universities such as Stanford and the Church College of Hawaii (later renamed BYU-Hawaii) and he became dean of the Technical Institute at Brigham Young University in the 1960s. In 1978 Ernest Jeppsen and his wife Dora were called to serve a Latter-Day Saint mission in New York State. He died November 16, 1990.