Before joining the IPFW faculty in 2002, he was Assistant Director of Bands, Director of Jazz Studies, and saxophone instructor at Southeastern Louisiana University.  Prior to that he was Professor of Saxophone at James Madison University in Virginia and served as part-time faculty at the University of Northern Colorado.

Vernon earned a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from Indiana University where he was awarded the prestigious Performer's Certificate on saxophone. He also holds a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from the University of Denver and a Doctor of Arts degree in Saxophone Performance and Pedagogy with a secondary emphasis in Jazz Studies from the University of Northern Colorado.

Vernon is an active performer, educator, composer, arranger, clinician and adjudicator whose work takes him from local clubs to international venues. He has performed with the Rome Festival Orchestra, Sempre Saxophone Quartet, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the Cheyenne Symphony, and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, among others.  Vernon also has performed in local, national, and international jazz festivals and has shared the stage with noteworthy jazz and pop performers including Ray Charles, Linda Ronstadt, Tito Puente, Bobby Shew, Ernie Watts, Denis DiBlasio, Louis Bellson, Al Jarreau, Roberta Flack, the Shirelles, Anne Hampton Callaway, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and the Temptations.

Farrell has appeared on numerous albums, from classical, jazz, blues, and gospel recordings to salsa, cajun, and rock.  His CD, The Forgotten Saxophone: New Music for the Sopranino (Arizona University Recordings, December 2007) received a highly positive review in The Saxophone Journal.  He also appears on several AUR jazz and classical compilation CDs and CD box sets distributed internationally.  Dozens of his instrumental transcriptions and compositions are available through Dorn Publications and Arizona University Press.  Four of Vernon's transcription books for woodwinds have been published.

In both 1998 and 1999, Down Beat magazine named Vernon the top Blues/Pop/Rock Instrumental Soloist. With UNC Combo II, he won another Down Beat award in 2000.

His former teachers include David Baker, Dominic Spera, Eugene Rousseau, Roger Greenberg, Gene Aitken, Craig Whittaker, and Malcolm Lynn Baker.

Farrell, a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, and his wife Teresa have an 8-year-old son, Brody, a schnoodle named Buster, and a calico cat called Mavis.