 He was also among the first in his party to reject the 1973 coup by Pinochet and was exiled by the military dictatorship from 1975 until 1984.The son of Luis Huepe Godoy and Marta García Norambuena, renowned businesspeople from Chillán, he studied Industrial Civil Engineering in the Universidad Católica de Chile and later obtained a master in economic development at the Center for Development Economics of Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts).During the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva, he was named the provincial governor of the Province of Arauco (1964–1968), the youngest to hold such position, at age of 24.