[1] Alan Claude Ferguson was born into a pioneer family of the Ozarks where he and his three brothers were raised on a small Jersey dairy farm in Willow Springs, Missouri.

He and his brothers, Carl, Bob and Paul would go with their father to one-room school houses where they would show their home-made movies of wildlife, streams and untouched forests to encourage the support of this legislation.

He was assigned to the Blue Buck Tower as a fire lookout on the newly founded Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri.

After three years service in the U.S. Navy as an Aviation Radio-Radar Operator, Gunner and instructor during W.W. II he returned to the Mark Twain as a forestry aide in timber management and land acquisition.

[4] Ferguson headed a Department of Agriculture Forest Service team with the re-introduction of wild turkeys to Indiana from his home state of Missouri.

In 1963 along with the Indiana Department of Natural Resource (DNR) a trade was made for ruffled grouse for 21 wild turkeys from the Ozarks of southern Missouri.

The United States Department of Agriculture began a fire ant eradication program which involved aerial spraying of DDT, 2,4,5-T and 24-D - pesticide chemicals mixed with fuel oil.

An interim off-road vehicle policy was established, allowing limited use of them in a small number of approved areas until October 8, 1970 when the Hoosier National Forest was temporarily closed to all ORV use, pending the results of further studies.

Despite an incomplete environmental impact statement and public hearings, Hoosier National Forest Supervisor Don Girton made the decision to proceed with a policy of allowing ORV use to take effect as early as September, 1972.

When the contractor was told to bill the work to the Forest Service for "routine maintenance", he was outraged that these funds were being diverted and declared this was a "violation of the law".

October 9, 1974, Forest Supervisor Don Girton, District Ranger Frank Haubry, Ferguson and others took a tour to review the newly built ORV trails.

According to IDS News Staff writer, Gloria Joseph,[11] Girton was later quoted as saying, "If you want to nitpick, you might find some deviation from the ORV standards in the trails".

[21][22][23] Ferguson claimed the Privacy Act of 1974 rules were broken when his personal medical history was included in a sworn written statement that Sandor gave to a US government special agent on June 18, 1975.

Reps. Mo Udall and Paul Simon, along with Senator Patrick Leahy introduced bills in the US Congress to create review boards to investigate worker complaints about improper government actions.