Watching birds in flight as a child, Jeppesen, formerly of O’Dell,Ore., longed to take to the sky. As a teenager, he saved enough money for an eight minute flight in a Curtiss Jenny and by age 20 he soloed as a student of the Rankin School of Aviation. Flying as a reserve pilot for the Boeing Air Transport Company, Jeppesen realized the need for aeronautical charts for safe flight and began recording field lengths, slopes, drainage patterns and information on lights and obstacles. Before long, other pilots became aware of Jeppesen’s “little black book” and began requesting copies of their own – so many, in fact, he began to charge $10 a copy. Today, Jeppesen’s charts are a staple in most pilots’ navigational chests. Jeppesen’s award is posthumous.

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