Emil Henry Jebe was born to Jurgan and Theresa Jebe on February 26, 1909 in Cutlier, Iowa. He received his B.S. (1938) in Economics from Iowa State University. He later received his M.S. (1941) from Iowa State in Agricultural Economics and his Ph.D. (1950) in Experimental Statistics from North Carolina State University.



Dr. Jebe served in the armed forces in Korea (1941-1946) during World War II. At the time of his retirement, he was a lieutenant colonel. Upon return to the United States, he became a Resident Collaborator (1946-1949) at North Carolina State while earning his Ph.D. in the Institute of Statistics as well as at the Raleigh Research Office for the United States Department of Agriculture. He conducted research in sampling agricultural populations, and designed and analyzed results of sample surveys.



With over forty years of experience in statistics, Dr. Jebe was primarily interested in quantitative studies, sampling, and experimentation. Dr. Jebe was also a statistician with the Bureau of the Census, serving as a special consultant for the Post Enumeration Survey in 1950 and conducting a quality check on the 1950 Census of Population, Housing and Agriculture.



At Iowa State, he served as Associate Professor (1949-1959) of Statistics teaching courses in statistical methods for research workers, sample survey methods, and business statistics for both graduate and undergraduate students. During this period, he also served as a consultant to the USDA, Farm Electrification Research, for investigation of electrical loads and maximum demands. He planned, directed, supervised, and assisted in statistical research on maximum electrical loads on farms.



He was a member of Phi Kappa Phi, The American Statistics Association, The Economic Society, Chi Phi Fraternity, Scabbard and Blade, the American Ordnance Association, and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. After retiring from Iowa State, he was a research mathematician (1959-1979) at the University of Michigan and the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan.



Emil Jebe has contributed to the analysis of several experiments with nonorthogonal designs. He examined the additivity assumption of models used in the designs and suggested methods for investigating this assumption. He also adapted analysis of variance IBM 709 computer programs to the specific needs of the Operations Research Dept. WRL, and has studied the possible applications of multivariate analysis to the interpretation of test results.



After leaving the University of Michigan, he was a Statistician Emeritus with the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, eventually becoming Chairman. He married Noma Lureen Rupprich in Cedar Falls, Iowa on June 16, 1941 and would later marry Florence S. Jebe in 1994. Emil Jebe died of cancer on May 18, 1996 in Rogers, Arkansas. His ashes are buried at Westview Cemetary in La Porte City, Iowa.