Iver O. Penttinen was born on August 4, 1916 in Massachusetts. He had a twin brother named William. By trade, he was a master machinist who worked on the manufacturing of the Brewster Buffalo 239 (Finland) as well as bombsights during World War II.

In the late 1920s, Penttinen started to collect World War I photographs and articles, which later developed into a large collection and made him a World War I aviation aficionado. He and his brother knew pilots from that era and were in correspondence with many people throughout the world. The brothers founded The Junior Birdmen of America, a club that accepted women. One of the club's members was Ms. Muriel Henderson who later married Iver O. Penttinen. The couple had a daughter named Kristen.

The brothers were deeply engaged in a chapter of The Society of World War I Aero Historians, New York Metropolitan Chapter, part of the Cross and Cockade. Another of Penttinen’s other interests was golf, in which he won a few trophies in tournaments of the 1950s. Iver O. Penttinen passed away on October 8, 1995 in The Bronx, New York at the age of seventy-nine.