Elmer Jesse Sowder was born on January 4, 1923, in Amarillo, Texas. Elmer married Jeanie on February 14, 1996, and they had four children: Carol, Cheryl, Kerry, and Kay.
Sowder attended Texas A & M College and was enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
Sowder worked as a test director for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in affiliation with the Nevada Test Site.
Jon Sparer is an architect in Las Vegas, Nevada who has worked on numerous hotels and casinos. He moved to Las Vegas in July 1981 and worked for the architecture firm Rissman and Rissman before joining Marnell Corrao. After briefly retiring in 1999, Sparer opened his own architecture firm and was contacted by Congregation Ner Tamid (of which he was a casual member) to design their new temple in Green Valley. He was also the architect for the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada (“The Center”) in Las Vegas.