In over-the-board chess he received the FIDE title of International Master (IM) in 1990.
[1] In correspondence chess he earned the ICCF titles of International Master (IM) in 1994 and Grandmaster (GM) in 1996.
The slowness of conventional postcards in the seventeenth championship led to the winner of the eighteenth World Championship, Joop van Oosterom being announced before Bern's victory in the seventeenth.
In over-the-board chess Bern has won the Open Norwegian Championships three times, in 1986, 1989 and 1990.
Bern has also been active as guitarist in the music rock groups The Swamp Babies and Syv.